Tag Archives: Columbine

Mrs. Owl

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Flammulated owl

Down the trail we went, dogs happily wagging their tails as they bounded down the trail, darting in and out between the pines.  Water washed over the trail, a product of the melting snow.  It’s a familiar walk for us, as the North Boulder Creek Trail is just up the road from where we live.  We’ve taken this trail many a time on a hot summer’s day as well as snowshoeing it in the winter.

I’ve walked the trail so many times, I sort of take it for granted.  I know every bend in the trail, anticipating where the old 1960s car wreck is, as well as the old mining shack.  There’s that one rock outcropping just before the last little bit of trail descends sharply, and Columbine wildflowers appear in abundance right before the creek.

Every now and then a new tree comes down across the trail, a product of beetle kill and Nederland winds that bring down the dead snags.  Just before the creek, we come across a snag that looks like it is close to falling, leaning at a precarious angle, with nary a green needle on it.  It just appears to be a rotten, dead tree that will soon be decomposing on the forest floor.

We stop at the tree, and Bryon decides to knock on it.  Why?  Who knows?  But as we gaze upward at the snag, we are surprised by a small face that pops out of one of the holes, large brown eyes peering down upon us.

While we have thought of this tree as just another dead tree in the forest, the Flammulated owl has used the cavities in this tree to make a home, perhaps to hatch its young, perhaps just a temporary home for the summer.

Flammulated owls frequently take up residence in old Ponderosa Pine snags such as this one, often taking over nesting spots vacated by woodpeckers or flickers.  The incubation time for their eggs takes about three weeks with their young fledging during the month of July.

Seeing how very small the adult owl is as she peers down on us, I can only imagine how small the owlettes will be.  Adult flammulated owls are usually a mere 6 inches in length.  Besides their size, what makes them distinct is their very intense brown eyes.  Most owls in Colorado have golden eyes.

When we returned to the creek two weeks later, the snag has fallen — a victim of its rotten wood, wind, and its precarious lean.  I only hope that the owl was able to vacate in time, or that perhaps it wasn’t nesting with its young.

These owls are a victim of the disappearing old growth forest and people encroaching on their habitat.  Unfortunately, as Colorado’s growing population continues to move into the mountains, they take away possible homes for these tiny creatures, often using the snags as firewood.  Perhaps for both our sakes, we can mindful of preserving the forest around us so for our mutual benefit.

Caribou

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Caribou, Colorado in 1870s

All that remains are a few stone walls.  Nature has reclaimed the rest of what was once a vibrant mining town located high in the mountains near the Continental Divide.  Now the Columbine flowers bloom, and the green grasses blow in the winds.  Marmots scurry among the boulders that dot the landscape here and there.

But travel back in time 140 years ago, and a completely scene would greet you.  If any time is synonymous with Colorado’s boom times during its famous gold rush of the 1800s, Caribou is it.  Ironically, though Caribou’s good times were not based on gold strikes, but silver.

The gold strikes of 1859 brought prospectors from far and wide streaming into Colorado.  Though some found gold in places like Black Hawk and Central City, more did not.  One prospector, Sam Conger, spent some time in the mountains looking for gold and came up empty, or so he thought.  He’d seen something, but didn’t take it for anything of value.

It was only when he returned several years later with a friend, William Martin, who had mined silver in Nevada, that they realized exactly what Conger had seen.  A small island of silver located at 10,000 feet, rich lodes of silver had been struck.

Thought they tried to keep the word quiet, it wasn’t long before others heard of this signficiant silver strike.  In fact, even the famous New York Times got in on the publicity, describing it as:

“Wild excitement among the adventurers of the territory.  The richest silver deposits on the continent.”

As prospectors and miners moved in, wagon roads were built, and soon a town sprouted up in this most likely of places — a rugged and harsh environment, where the winds blew over 100 miles per hour and snow piled up by the feet in the winter.

Despite the conditions, the town grew quickly and it wasn’t long before it was a bustling community with 3000 people, 60 businesses, a schoolhouse, and even a fancy hotel — the Sherman House.  You had to be a little hearty to survive those winters, and people kept up their spirits by hosting dances, events, and even balls during Christmas and New Year’s.  The Caribou Post touted the New Year’s Ball of 1872 as:

“ a high and happy affair, none but those of the highest standing were admitted.  It was probably the most elevated ball given in honor of the New Year in America.”

But like most mining towns, the boom times of Caribou would eventually come to an end after a 12-year run of silver mining that yielded around $8 million dollars in revenue.  Eventually, the government subsidy of silver stopped, the prices dropped, and it became too costly to continue mining.

The town suffered through two major fires, and most of the buildings from its famous mining heydays were destroyed.  Today, a drive up the old Caribou Road reminds me what once was, and the beauty of Caribou’s wildness that has reclaimed reminds of the good that still remains.

Colorado Columbine

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Columbines grace the fields of Governor Basin in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado

Columbines grace the fields of Governor Basin in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado

I saw my first Rocky Mountain Columbine in bloom the other day and our neighborhood, and it reminded me of how lovely this wildflower is.  As we approach 4th of July, I’m reminded that is is not  only the birthday of our country, but also of the state of Colorado, and its state flower.  I’ve always thought it unfortunate that the word Columbine connotes such tragic memories for most, because of the Columbine High School massacre.  But in fact, the high school got its name from our wonderful wildflowers that bloom in the high country around this time.

What makes the Columbine one of my favorites?  It has the most exquisite structure and coloration to it.  With the purple blue on the outside, which are actually sepals (like leaves) rather than petals, and the delicate white petals on the inside, nodding on a slim, reedy branch.  Columbines actually prefer shady, wet areas, so you only usually find them in forested or riparian areas near creeks and rivers.  There are some alpine lakes that provide the ideal habitat for columbine.  Bryon backpacked last year near Chasm Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park and came upon an entire hillside of Columbine in bloom.  I’ve been told that another fabulous spot for Columbine is the aptly named Columbine Lake out of the Winter Park area, which would be a  worthy destination.

Columbine was first discovered on one of Colorado’s highest peaks, Pikes Peak, in 1820, and is beloved not only by people, but also by hummingbirds and bees.  While there are over 70 species of Columbine that bloom in the world, it is the lavender type that populates the high country in Colorado.  Because it is so prized, the Colorado Assembly enacted a law in 1925 that makes it illegal to pull up a plant on public lands, and limits the blooms and seeds that may be collected.  But many garden stores sell the seeds of the Colorado Columbine as part of a native wildflower mix, so if you can find the right spot, you can grow your own Columbine.

We’re planning one of our first summer alpine hikes tomorrow, and I’m hoping we get to see many Columbines along the way.  One of my favorite things I’v’e heard about Columbine is an interpretation of its colors as it relates to Colorado:

Blue is a symbol of the sky, white represents snow, and yellow symbolizes Colorado’s gold mining history.

The Wonder of Wildflowers

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Fireweed blooming on our septic field

When I lived in Oregon, I used to love to garden.  Something about getting my hands dirty while planting bulbs, lilac bushes, perennials and annuals, and then nurturing them through watering and loving care to see them bloom each summer provided me with great fulfillment.  A lot of my friends who live down in Boulder and Denver are busy buying and planting both vegetables and flowers in their gardens these past few weeks.  But living in the mountains on a well, a conventional garden is not an option.  That’s because in Colorado, if you live on a parcel of land less than 35 acres and drill a well, you can only use the water inside your house (Household-use Only Wells).  So even though we have a spigot, we are not allowed to use the water to water outside plants.  The only water we can use towards that purpose is rainwater we would collect off the roof into a cistern (which we currently don’t have).  Does this stop us from having a garden?  Not exactly…

Along with having a well as our resource for water in our house, we also have a septic holding tank down the hill from our house, what we refer to as the leach field.  During the first summer after we bought our house in Nederland, we noticed flowers sprouting up and blooming…all over the septic field.  It makes sense in a way, since it is the most moisture-laden area on our property.  One of the flowers that seems to do extraordinarily well there is Fireweed.  Fireweed is a very tall, showy wildflower with purple-pink blooms along stalks that grow as tall as 6 feet high.  It is native flower that is part of the Evening Primrose family, and gets its name from the fact that it is grows rapidly and is widespread in areas previously burned over by fires.  Fireweed was one of the first plants to grow after the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens.  I have vivid memories of Fireweed while hiking in Yosemite National Park, walking through a large field of Fireweed that was as tall as I one summer.  But Fireweed is not the only flower that blooms in our leach field.  We also have wild roses, Cinquefoil (a lovely yellow flower), as well as Colorado’s state wildflower, the Columbine.

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Penstemon blooming in the burn area in Shadow Canyon

One of the things I love about wildflowers is the surprise and wonder they bring you, when you happen upon them.  Because they aren’t cultivated, you never quite know what will bloom, when, during any given summer.  One of my most lovely memories of wildflowers was in the nearby Flatiron Mountains flanking Boulder to the west.  My husband I were hiking Shadow Canyon to the top of Bear Peak, one of the Flatiron’s highest peak in late June last year.  The previous summer, a wildfire had burned across the saddle and we knew the upper third of Shadow Canyon had been burned over, and were curious to see how the burned area was regenerating.  As we hiked up through the canyon, a  carpet of purple and yellow wildflowers greeted us, seemingly more at every turn.  The burned area had provided just the right mineral soil, and the lack of competition had given lots of sun and water to produce a stunning display of wildflowers — it was simply breathtaking.

A few years ago, we hiked to a place called Herman’s Gulch along the Continental Divide Trail.  After hiking, I looked up the hike on the Internet, and read that sometimes if you hit it right during the month of July, you can see up to 100 species of wildflowers blooming at the same time — what they coined as a “Century Hike.”  I’m hoping that with all the spring snow and moisture we had, that this July could be one of those moments, and have planned a hike for early July in hopes that this could be the year.  One of my favorite things about hiking the Rocky Mountains during summer is the magic of spying a new wildflower I’ve never seen before. Here’s hoping this summer brings the wonder of wildflowers for all who wander the trails…

“May your life be like a wildflower growing freely in the beauty and joy of each day.”

— Native American Proverb

 

 

Water, Water, Everywhere

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CO River mapWe’ve still got 6-7 inches of snow left over from our mega-snowstorm from last week, and water is oozing from everywhere.  The snow had a very high amount of water content, and as it melts, the soil is becoming saturated with all that water, and there is mud and seeps running everywhere.  This is great news for Colorado heading into the summer season, as it means snow pack levels in the high peaks are at normal and above, and the reservoirs are filling to maximum capacity, including Barker reservoir in Nederland.

It’s amazing how many depend on the snow in the Rocky Mountains, from people like me who live in the mountains to people living in Las Vegas and the seven states who draw on the river from the Colorado River.  The Colorado River headwaters actually begin in northern Rocky Mountain National Park, so the snow that falls just 45 minutes up the road from where I live, can have a huge impact on people living downstream as far as California and southern Arizona.  It is a such a big deal, that a compact was negotiated back in 1922 between the seven states — Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Nevada — and the federal government to decide how water resources would be allocated.  The Colorado River Compact divided the Colorado River Basin into two – an Upper Basin and Lower Basin, with each basin being granted the right to allocate and use 7.5 million acre feet of water annually.

I’m sure at the time, that seemed like a lot of water to use.  But as population in the American Southwest continues to grow, the demand for the water from the Colorado River becomes greater and more hotly contested every year.  So the snow we are receiving now can make a big difference to farmers, public utilities, and even local residents for the next several months.  But it even impacts how us mountain people in Nederland function on a daily basis.

Because the water resources are so precious, those of us who live on a well and septic system must live quite differently than our downstream neighbors in Boulder.  We can not use any water from our well for outside purposes.  The only water we are allowed to collect outside is rainwater off the roof into a cistern.  All those spring bulbs popping up in the valleys are not even option for us, because we can’t water the bulbs when they are planted — we have to depend on Mother Nature.  And given that we can have extreme dry periods in fall, they would probably dry up and die.

We also don’t grow lawns in this part of the country, instead just letting the natural environment provide what it will, in the form of natural grasses and wild shrubs.  Instead of planting flower beds, I throw some wildflower seed in certain wet areas like our septic holding field, and a few of them take and provide bursts of purple and pink as the Columbine and Fireweed bloom.  Even our ability to continue to have indoor water is dependent on those snowy winters.  We are very fortunate in that at the moment we have a well that pumps a lot of water — measured in gallons per minute.  Ours is around 12 gallons per minute, considered quite good.  But a few winters of drought like they are now experiencing in California, could make a huge difference in our ability to continue to have sufficient water for showers, flushing toilets, and washing dishes and clothes.

So when I hear talk of water conservation, I know it’s important to do my part, as it is for all of us who live in the western states.  The melting snows of the Rocky Mountains and our combined community effort will make the difference and determine our very survival for years to come.