Devil’s Head Again and Aspen Graffiti

Seems like I just did a post about Devil’s Head?…I did, but Guitar wanted to do the hike too and couldn’t make it last Friday, so he and I did it yesterday. The weather was scheduled to be hot on the plains, almost to 90 degrees, but the weather on the trail was at least 20 degrees cooler. A wonderful day for a hike. We started at about 10:30 am and didn’t see another soul until we were almost at the top. After showing him the fire tower at the summit we ate lunch and took our time coming down.

On our way down we passed a group of one young woman and about 15 young men. All were dressed in uniform tee shirts and trail pants. They all looked like they were walking around the block….not even breathing hard. When we got to the bottom of the trail we saw a number of Forest Service vehicles and deduced that they were a team of Forest Service fire fighters going up to tour the fire lookout.

This trail winds through an aspen grove at the beginning and I didn’t really pay much attention to it on my hike on last Friday. This trip we spent some time looking at the aspen graffiti carved into the trunks. I wrote a post about aspen graffiti last year and in that post the earliest date I saw was 1965. Since the lifespan of an aspen tree is only 30-40 years that’s pretty good.

I was amazed to find a dates of 1932 and 1936, both on the same tree, in the grove of aspens at Devil’s Head! If this was not a hoax it means that this tree is at least 77 years old! Just amazing!

Saturday both Guitar and I are volunteering at the Tesoro Foundation’s Indian Market and Powwow. This year I will be an “Artist Ambassador”. That’s a fancy name for a gopher for the artists. I will help them in any way they need….carrying merchandise to the cars of customers, watching their booths while they take a break or that sort of thing. I volunteered at this same function last year and had fun doing it so I’m looking forward to this years event.

I’ve also been preparing for next weeks trip to Moab. Yesterday I made a meat loaf and froze it to take along. Today I made a big batch of 5 bean salad for the same purpose. If things go right, tomorrow I’ll make a batch of macaroni salad as well. There will be seven of us in our group, The Circle = 6 and Ladder Lady makes seven, so I’m pretty sure all of it will get eaten.

I’ll leave you with one last picture. On our way to the trailhead we spotted a group of Pasqueflowers in bloom.

Thanks for visiting.