Great job, if you can get it

A group of researchers got the plum job of wandering the back trails of Yellowstone National Park taking photos.

They're lugging around 70-year-old camera equipment to the park’s highest points to take photos from the same vantage points as did Leonard M. Moe, who took dozens of panoramic photos in the park in the 1930s, according to the AP.

Moe’s photos were marked with peaks and other landmarks and kept in fire towers to help rangers be able to describe where a fire had broken out. Over time, however, the photos became less useful as landscape changed.

The researchers hope to document exactly how the park has changed by taking the same photos Moe took and comparing the images after 72 years of fires, bark beetle infestations, climate change and other factors. It's a joint project of the Park Service and U.S. Forest Service.

Some photo spots are accessible by helicopter or road. But most required hiking up steep slopes with 75 pounds of equipment.

Cool Bock house at Red Rock Canyon will be saved

The monthly meeting for Friends of Red Rock Canyon happens tonight (July 5) from 7 to 9 PM in the Academy Room at City Hall.
The group will be discussing transforming the old Bock house into an open-air pavilion. The city already has plans for this. It's just a matter of getting the money together. Apparently the garage/bombshelter next door will be knocked down. Too bad -- a piece of Cold War history destroyed.

Dinosaurs in Red Rock Canyon

Before you fire up the grill Wednesday, or maybe as you're waiting for the coals to burn down (if you're a charcoal cooker), look for these two stories in the Gazette:

In Metro: Bill Vogrin went fossil hunting with experts in Red Rock Canyon Open Space and found dinosaur footprints, fossilized clams; the teeth of shell-crushing sharks; and numerous imprints of nautilus-like ammonites.
Way cool.

Check this for a sneak preview.

Another promising story, this time in Sports:
Brian Gomez is writing about the Mountain Bike Marathon National Championships in Breckenridge. He said he'll talk to at least one of these three Springs cyclists: Kelli Emmett, Sam Jurekovic or Katherine Compton.

Here is a shot of last weekend's gravity racing at Keystone, the first stop of the new Rocky Mountain G3 Gravity Series with two downhill races and a Super D race and a purse of $10,000 in cold, hard cash. Angel Fire and Sol Vista will host the next two stops on the gravity race series.

Check out Keystone's Labor Day Mountain States Cup event - The Keystone Climax (Aug. 31 - Sept. 2) - and Keystone's six new downhill trails that'll open this summer (the Money trail has already opened with 22 tabletop jumps. Even Flow trail is set to open next week followed by four more trails later this summer).
Click here for results: http://www.g3gravityseries.com/keystone.html

Photo credit Bob Winsett. Keystone Bike Park

No buyers for biggest house in Colorado

A Saudi prince accused of accepting hundreds of millions in bribes to help seal an arms deal is having problems selling his 56,000 sq ft house near Aspen .

Since it was listed late last year, the British newspaper, the Telegraph said about 1,000 people have asked to see the Hala Ranch, which includes a beauty salon and car wash. But there are no potential buyers. I don't know, maybe it's the $135 million price tag.

Mountain is fireworks-ready

If you've hike the Intemann Trail above downtown Manitou in recent days, you've seen the firehose snaking along for hundreds of feet. This is a precaution to the fireworks that will be set off from Red Mountain on Wednesday, probably a little after 9.
If you've ever picked up a firehose, you know this is no little undertaking. But, it's gotta be done to protect the hills, no matter how green they look (and, boy, do they look lush and inviting this year).
Here's the hose snaking upward from the trail, where members of the Manitou Springs Volunteer Fire Dept. will be at-the-ready. Definitely a different sight for hikers, and a reminder to treat the hills with respect.



Which brings me to this:

This backpack (extreme left), papers, Post-Its, a textbook and other stuff was burned, apparently late Saturday or early Sunday where the Red Mountain Spur branches off. Totally uncool. This sort of thing easily could get out of control. I'd already filled by garbage bag with trash (picked up along Pawnee, not the hiking trail), so couldn't get all of this.

We'll walk that way this evening and pack it out if it's still there.

For shame!

Celebrate in nature

If you've got a few free hours this week, celebrate the USofA the natural way - take a hike.

Zen sends these images from a recent hike on the Mount Esther Trail. You can hike up from Chipita Park or from the Crowe Gulch Trailhead off the Pikes Peak Highway.


Paintbrush popping up through the grasses near stands of aspen,
Cheery, yellow wallflowers
Blue-eyed grasses
Groundsel and geranium
Open meadows (Feel free to burst out in The Happy Wanderer song)
And a shockingly orange dandelion.
Whatever you do, don't forget your buddy.

Zen says the mix of blooms is fantastic and the grasses are knee deep. He also saw columbine, penstemon "rioting enmasse," daisies, irises, buttercups, cinquefoils and mertensia (chiming bells).

I have to agree with hiker Zen: "What a phenomonal year."

Trumpeting a bigger Sunlight could sound demise

The new owners of Sunlight ski resort near Glenwood Springs are spending big money for big improvements, and it makes me a little afraid that this could cause one of the state's smallest resorts to go under.

The Associated Press reports Exquisite Development, based in Destin, Fla., bought the 40-year-old ski area in December for an undisclosed price. The asking price was $50 million.
The resort's new owners plan $15 million of on-mountain improvements, plus a 750-unit base village.
Besides a new high-speed lift and restaurant, proposed improvements include a new lift to the extreme ski area and 120 acres of snowmaking, up from the current 20 acres at the bottom of a beginner run.

Here's the problem. Sunlight is a locals hill, always has been. How can you draw people from out of state when you have Vail, Beaver Creek, Aspen and Snowmass all within an hour's drive.

Sunlight is one of the rare medium-sized ski areas that has survived (and thrived) among its bigger competitors (see also Monarch, Loveland and Wolf Creek). For these medium-sized places, the key to survival is being largely debt free. (Don't over build. Don't spend too much, and if you have a few tough years, you won't have bills piling up. Plus, then you can charge less, and attract more people.)

Apparently the folks from Florida plan to try the other skiing business model: spend a bundle and make it back on base area activities.We'll see if it works. I hope they don't do to Sunlight what they did to what was once a quiet stretch of beach called Destin.

I also hope Sunlight isn't killed by over optimistic investors with more vision than money, like Pikes Peak Ski Area was.

More storm chasers

Local residents Mel Riley (top photo) and Connie Carpenter sent these photos in after our wild weather this week. They were posted on the staff photographers' blog, and I thought I'd share them here, too.

Top of Cheyenne mountain: lots of cool stuff

The Broadmoor's Cheyenne Mountain Lodge (pictured below in 1954) is on private land, so you can't visit it. And it was demolished in the 1970s, so there is only a foundation left. (Too bad, it's a great Mission Revival-style lodge. It reminds me of the main building at the zoo.) But there's plenty of other stuff to see on the mountain.
Like this old pump, along the McNeil Trail, which was used to pump water from a spring to the lodge. If you see this pump when looking for the Swisher trail, you've gone too far.
The Swisher trail climbs up, up, up until it finally empties into this gorgeous meadow. Doesn't look like you'd think Cheyenne Mountain would look, does it?
More aspen meadow, on the way to the old Swisher homestead.
Not much is left of the homestead cabin, but you will find this old wood stove on the edge of the meadow.

Grab Toto and get to the cellar!

Dani sent this in. A dramatic shot of Wednesday afternoon's storm, taken from Golden Bell Camp in Divide. Holy mackerel.

Dirty snow melts faster

According to the AP, a new study by Colorado scientists shows that dust stirred up by farming, grazing, mining and recreation in the Four Corners area blew onto the San Juan Mountains and caused the snow to melt 30 days earlier this spring.

Over the last few years, a few storms have brought a thin layer of red snow to the Rockies and front range. I can remember a storm of an inch or two leaving my car covered in a film of red dust after the snow melted.

Apparently, the dark-colored fine sand catches heat from the sun and melts the snow much faster.

Scientists say the dust is caused by farming and grazing in the southwest. Nodoubt part of it, but the Southwest seems to produce plenty of fine red dust without our help. It could be that this has been going on at some level for thousands or millions of years.

Angry clouds above GM Falls

Out There friend Zen sent this photo last night (didn't see it till now, my Internet connect was down), taken as he was driving west on Hwy 24 around Green Mountain Falls. (Seems he and Dave were passing each other on the highway.)

Zen is a trained weather spotter. He says the cloud formation above the yellow & black arrow looked "awfully suspicious," but "could have just been what they call "scud" - but there seemed to be a lot of rotation too."

There was still a lot of hail in my yard when I got home to Manitou about 7:45. Until last night I thought I could get by another year before painting the house. Now, I'm not so sure! The garden looks beat up, but it'll survive.

On another note: Do you see the orangutan in the clouds?

Tornado up the pass?

Dave just called as he was driving down 24 from Woodland Park. He says he was looking at a funnel cloud over Chipita Park and saw another up around Divide. And it was hailing like a sonofagun. Anyone taking photos?

I saw a funnel could forming over Cedar Heights a few summers ago, but it never touched down. I never thought I'd see that sort of storm over the mountains, but old-timers say a tornado has touched down in Manitou. Wild.

Look for updates on gazette.com. And send your pix! dena.rosenberry@gazette.com or dave.philipps@gazette.com

What's in bloom

The barrage of wild flowers continues. On a hike up Chyenne Mountain Monday we saw several. Also, Tuesday in Stratton open space I saw more sego lillies than I've ever seen. Stunning.

Wild Iris

Yellow Pea

Blue Columbine

Spotted Coralroot (a tiny type of orchid)

Wild geranium

Sego lily

Off-roading outdoorsfolks

(Photo of an Outlander from www.atv.info -- not a trail at Bonny Lake)

As officials contemplate closing some areas of the state to off-roaders one area has been set aside. This, from state parks:

OHV area open at Bonny Lake State Park

IDALIA, Colo. — Bonny Lake State Park has opened an area for off- highway vehicle (OHV) use for 4-wheelers, 3-wheelers and dirt bikes. The area is in the northeast section of the park, adjacent to the North Cove campground in the dry lake bottom of North Cove.

There's about 150 acres with natural jumps and ridges. A half-mile trail has been established to improve shore-fishing access to the north end of the Bonny Lake Dam.

The new OHV area will be open daily from 8 a.m. to sundown until Oct. 31. All OHVs must have a current and valid OHV registration, which is available at the Bonny Lake Park Office. You can't ride into the park, though, you have to haul in.

And all riders must wear helmets and eye protection.

The rock climbing show

Interesting tidbit compiled by volunteers at The Pioneers Museum from old Gazettes appeared in the Gazette Monday: 50 years ago today Fort Carson stopped giving public rock climbing demonstrations. Carson is where the 10th Mountain Division was stationed for several years, and where much of the army's alpine techniques were developed. They used to climb extensively on the crumbly rock in North Cheyenne Canyon. Today, climbers on certain routes can still tie into huge eye-bolts presumably set by Uncle Sam. At the Parking area for Middle Columbine Trail, hikers can also scramble up to see "The Amphitheater," an outdoor classroom with what where once rows of benches facing a cliff. I assume this is where the demonstrations were. I've seen old photos of the mountain troops setting up ziplines across the canyon. Anyone know more about the history of those early climbing days? Perhaps we should hold a seance to contact Robert Ormes.