With all my travels of the past few weeks, I haven’t had a chance to enjoy fall in the high country so Sunday Guitar and I headed up through Kenosha Pass to the Fairplay and Alma area to do a little leaf peeping. I didn’t have big expectations since we’re at the beginning of October and it was a good thing. There was still some color at lower elevations but once we got to the summit of Kenosha Pass the leaves were totally gone. Not only were the leaves gone at higher elevations but a lot of the peaks were showing a dusting of recent snow.
The top of Kenosha Pass gives you a wonderful view of South Park and the many high peaks that surround this beautiful area. On this day we could see wintery clouds and snow squalls covering the entire area.
Plan B was to head up to the timber line outside Alma, CO and visit with the 1000+ year old bristlecone pines in an area called Windy Ridge. These amazing trees are among the oldest living things on the planet. One tree in California is 4900 years old! The Windy Ridge trees are young in comparison to that but they are still pretty spectacular.
It wasn’t the best day to take a 4WD trail above timberline but this would almost certainly be the last chance we had until next June when the snow finally retreats from this area so up we went. Aside from the cold and wind…on Windy Ridge, go figure…it wasn’t too bad. We had a few snow showers blow by but nothing serious. It was however, cold enough to keep me from doing all the photography I had planned on doing.
After a couple of hours of visiting and exploring we headed back down to the little old mining town of Alma and lunch at the South Park Saloon. The saloon is one of about two places in town to get a bite to eat and despite it’s “rustic” look the burgers were quite good.
We were back home in time to see most of the Denver Bronco football game….yes, winter is just around the corner.
Thanks for visiting.
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