Hiking the Green Mountain Trail

From the unforgettable Maroon Bells Wilderness, I dropped down to Denver to take the staff of Big City Mountaineers to lunch and then went west of I-70 to Golden to see Teresa Martinez with the Continental Divide Trail Alliance.  She knew I was coming to ask for day-hike recommendations on the CDT in Colorado and Wyoming.  She and her assistant Josh had print-outs ready for me, and I followed her recommendations scrupulously.

I took I-40 north to Berthoud Pass where I headed east and uphill on the CDT.  In an hour I was above tree line and had reached a ridge that looked out over Ethel Lake and a grand valley to the east.  To avoid an up-slope wind, I dropped down just a few yards to the west and stretched out on the tundra, first to doze…..and then to nap.  It was a glorious afternoon.

From there I worked my way north on US 40 and then north on CO 34 and entered Rocky Mountain National Park to hike the Green Mountain Trail.  As I was leaving the parking lot, I noticed a park ranger hefting a pack.  His name is Theron Daniel.  He was also out for the day, so we fell in step.  I immediately had questions about the dead and dying forest all around us.

We in the east don’t realize it, but the West (I mean the Rockies) is being eaten alive.  Pine bark beetles are doing the damage.  They are partial to lodgepole pine.  This species is found from Alaska to Mexico and are the dominant tree in Yellowstone.  On a dry slope the devastation can be 100%.  In a wet meadow a tree has a chance.  If it can produce an abundant flow of sap, it can sometimes repel the beetle with this flow as it is trying to burrow in.  Actually, a fungus carried by the beetle is what kills the tree.  Virtually all my photographs have dead trees in them.

A fabulous postcard photograph awaited us when we reached a meadow, my destination for the day.  A herd of elk, my first sighting of the trip, were grazing in the open.  A snow-flecked mountain provided a stunning backdrop.  My camera, which I switched on in the morning to witness the LCD come alive, refused to fire.  (I always take at least two camera bodies on a trip, but only one on each hike.)  I noticed “low battery.”  So I opened the camera to change batteries and found that one had leaked badly.  With my knife I scraped away the corrosion at the contact points.  But, alas, I couldn’t get the camera to fire.  A real photographic calamity.

Better trips ahead:  Buffalo Pass, South Pass “City,” and Brooks Lake before entering Montana.