Old Spanish Trail PIT – Part 2

It’s Friday evening and  the Old Spanish Trail project ended at about 3pm this afternoon. For the three days since my last report we have been tramping around sage brush plains and Ponderosa Pine forests searching for any evidence of the Old Spanish Trail. This particular piece of the trail was used between 1694 and the mid 1800’s but it’s exact location is yet unknown. Oh, we have a pretty good idea of the general area but the specific piece of ground that served as the historic “Interstate” remains elusive.

Three days and we probably searched about 4 square miles. We had no problem finding evidence of 100+ year old logging operations and even older railroad crews cutting trees for railroad ties. The area is also littered with prehistoric Native American rock tools, arrowheads and flakes but evidence of human activities in the 1694-1860 time frame were almost non-existent. I say “almost” because today, the last day of the project, we had the find of the week. One of the group located a Spanish spur rowel. The rowel is the round thing at the back of the spur and the design of this piece is relatively easy to place and sometimes date. The rowel that we found today is definitely a Spanish design and it is hand forged so it’s pretty old. How old exactly can’t be determined without some laboratory work.

The other artifact we found that possibly is of the target time period is a piece of a metal arrowhead. Originally the Native Americans made stone arrowheads. After contact with the Europeans, the Native Americans obtained metal and made metal arrowheads. Later still, they acquired firearms but the metal arrowheads were used from the 1700’s to the mid 1800’s. Take a good look at the picture above. Now consider that 20 people searched about 4 square miles and found these two pretty small artifacts buried in the ground…Amazing!

We worked hard but the sheer beauty of the country made the trekking and digging and wind very worth while. Did I say wind? Yesterday the wind blew HARD. Hard enough to knock you off balance if you weren’t paying attention. The weather shamans said that there were gusts of up to 50 mph and this time I believe them. The Ponderosa Pine forest helped dent the wind somewhat and some of the time it was warm enough that I stripped down to a T-shirt. The wind could not dull the smell of the sagebrush. The wind could not lessen the beauty of the blossoming Pasque flower. In short, the wind was a minor inconvenience in an incredibly beautiful place.

Metal detecting is hard work. It’s more intense than just walking and looking at the ground. You swing the detector left and right while walking and listening for the magical beep that means you need to get on your knees and start digging.. Swinging takes energy and muscle power that  I don’t/didn’t have to last the whole day. I kept it up however, and after six hours of swinging I had a pretty sore arm, (note to self: need to exercise arms more!) but the experience of holding an artifact in your hand that a person, a human, held in his or her hands 100 years or more ago in the same exact spot is …is…I don’t know how to describe it. It’s almost religious.

OK, getting too deep here. It was a wonderful week. I had the opportunity to explore an area of the country that I had never seen before. I was able to meet a lot of great people including a teacher from Australia, a retired Naval aviator, a policeman from California and a lot of other retired folks like myself. We didn’t find positive proof of the trail we were searching for, but we helped the Forest Service narrow the search somewhat. I’m hoping that the Forest Service will repeat this project next year because I really think we were close to finding that positive proof. If they do repeat the project you can bet that my name will be on the application list.

Here’s some more pics of the trip……

 

 

I’m home for a week then it’s off to John Martin Reservoir to work with the Colorado Division of Wildlife but more on that later….

Thanks for visiting.

Pole Gulch- Passport In Time

I returned yesterday afternoon from my volunteer work with the Forest Service. What a great week! A week of beautiful mountains…mostly beautiful weather and great archaeology.

I left the house mid afternoon last Sunday and drove to Fairplay, CO a small old mining town, now small tourist town about 60 miles, but a world away from here. There I met with the Forest Service archaeologist and several other of the volunteers for an “ice breaker”. After meeting everyone and getting a bite to eat I headed for the campground that was to be our headquarters for the week. It was about 12 miles south of Fairplay and off the highway about a mile. Nothing fancy here. Outhouses and a water pump were the only amenities but the setting under the pine and spruce trees was enough for me.

Our project was to explore Pole Gulch and look for signs of prehistoric and historic activity. The group consisted of seven volunteers and two archaeologists. We split up into two teams and fanned out across an incredibly beautiful valley to begin the search.

The search is simple enough. We walk in a line about 5-10 yards apart and look at the ground trying to find stone tools or flakes indicating that prehistoric people had visited the place. Part of the valley had been searched before and several sites had been discovered so we were pretty sure we’d find more. 

It didn’t take long to find flakes of Jasper on the ground. We could tell that they had been worked by someone and besides the nearest source of Jasper in the area was over 10 miles away. The picture to the right is of a flake like the many we found. We also found some more complete “points” and tools, pictured below.

All in all we found about six different prehistoric sites and three or four historic sites. One of the historic sites was the remains of an old logging camp with what appeared to be four different dwellings. The only thing that remained was scraps of lumber to indicate where the houses were and all sorts of debris; dish fragments which would indicate that women were present; a marble that would indicate that children were present and a lot of cans and other household debris. This site probably dated from 1900 to about 1920.

It’s much harder to date the prehistoric sites but it appeared as if this valley had been used by Native Americans for thousands of years as a summer campground….and I could see why. Plenty of fresh water and game and an incredible view of the surrounding area. One site was on top of a hill that gave a clear view for miles around. If you were there it would be pretty hard for someone to sneak up on you.

We surveyed the area for five days and wound up the project Friday about noon. The Bride came up on Friday afternoon and we had a great two days of just chilling and a little exploring. On Saturday morning I took her back into the area we surveyed and showed her some of the things we found. She was pretty good at spotting flakes on the ground!

On Saturday night The Bride prepared a gourmet meal of lamb chops and grilled asparagus….a little wine, a great meal with great ambiance….life is good.

The wildflowers were also spectacular at the altitude we were at and I was able to get a couple of HDR photos….see below. I still have several more applications in for other PIT projects and hope that I’ll get selected for one or two. This is really habit forming….

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for visiting.

Wildflowers

For the past week or three, I’ve been taking hikes to various front range locations to view the wildflowers which are now in full bloom at this altitude. One of the great things about Colorado is that because of the wide range of altitudes in the state, you can see gorgeous wildflowers from late May until the middle of August. In June, the bloom is down here at 5000-6000’.

Here are some pictures I’ve taken while on these hikes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hiking has been a morning adventure because for the last couple of weeks, afternoon brings some vicious thunder storms and funnel clouds. Yesterday, Guitar and I almost got caught in a really bad one but escaped by the hair of our chinny chin chin!

 

 

 

 

Thanks for visiting.

 

Pawnee Buttes, Lamb Springs and Molly Dog

Yesterday, Guitar and I did something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, hike around Pawnee Buttes. Pawnee Buttes are a series of geological formations in northeast Colorado. You really want to have to go there, to get there. To catch a phrase, it’s desolate there. The only sign of human habitation are a few scattered ranch houses and windmills, yes windmills. This area is pretty windy year round and the power companies have installed hundreds of windmills a few miles from the spot of our hike. If you enlarge the picture to the left you can see some on the ridge, center right in picture.

The trip from the Denver area is about 100 miles, but it’s light years away from the city crowds and madness. The hike itself was about 5 miles round trip and it wound over prairie and through some badlands. We saw only two other people there and they were about 1/2 mile away.

The wildflowers were spectacular. It’s amazing the number of different types of flowers we saw in an area that, in the heat of summer, you would think was barren of flowers. I brought my Rocky Mountain wildflower guide but it was no help at all….This terrain could not be classified as “Rocky Mountain” . On our way to Pawnee we passed miles of prairie that were covered with some type of white morning glory type of flower. When I first spotted a field of them, I said to Guitar that it must have just hailed. That’s what the flowers looked like at a distance. The white covered the ground between other plants and bushes and looked like hail. I tried to take a picture but it just doesn’t show the way the eye sees it.

On the way back home we passed through the “almost” ghost town of Keota, CO. There were maybe, five people living in this otherwise deserted town. This town had it’s heyday just before WWI. At that time it had about 150 town residents and served about a thousand other ranchers, dryland farmers and their families. It had a bank, a newspaper, numerous stores and….no saloons. Today only a few buildings, the water tower and fire hydrants survive.

It was a long and enjoyable day. Guitar and I got back a little after 6 pm and are already beginning to plan for our next hike.

To tide our adventure lust over for the weekend, The Circle, had made plans for an unusual short trip on Saturday morning. Several weeks ago I read an article in a local newspaper about an archaeological site called Lamb Springs. On a local ranch not 20 miles from my home, a rancher in 1960, discovered the bones of a Columbian mammoth, ancient camel and ground sloth. The site now belongs to Douglas County, Colorado and they hold seven tours a year of the site. The Circle will see what this is all about on Saturday. Stay tuned.

While Guitar and I were on our hike yesterday, Molly Dog had an accident. It seems that while chasing a squirrel along the fence in our back yard, she severely cut her foot and tendon on the metal edging around a flower garden. Luckily The Emmer was home at the time and called The Bride. The Bride had to rush home and get her to a vet, who operated immediately. She is now not a happy pooch. Her right front leg is bandaged and in a splint and she is under the effects of heavy sedation for a few days. Total recovery time will be 10 days to two weeks. In looking at the amount of blood on our deck, patio and garage floor, I’m thinking she could have easily bled to death. I will be nurse for that period of time so there will be a break in my adventures for a while.

Thanks for visiting.

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.

Major Mountain Fix

The Circle arrived back home yesterday afternoon after an outstanding trip to the mountains. It was unusual for me to return on a Sunday with all the work a day peons, but that's what the rest of The Circle is. Being the nice guy that I am I returned with them and was reminded why I don't do that unless I have to.

I left town on Thursday and got to the campsite just outside of Buena Vista at about noon. The campsite was already pretty full but I managed to get two sites that would hold all three of our RVs.

Thursday afternoon it rained pretty hard for 2 or 3 hours so I used the time to finish up a book I had been reading. The rain caused things to cool down quite a bit and I had to resort to a light jacket to keep comfortable. Wearing a jacket in July makes me smile!

The rest of The Circle arrived mid day on Friday and spent the afternoon getting set up and enjoying the clean mountain air. While all this was going on Guitar and I slipped away to do some exploring up Cottonwood Canyon. I have been going to this campground for 45 years now but I had never explored up the canyon. I can't believe I have been missing this for 45 years!! Guitar and I decided that this would be an ideal excursion for the full Circle on Saturday.

Friday night Guitar acted as chef and cooked up some wonderful steaks and we had a great dinner. The only thing that was missing to make things perfect was The Bride. The Bride had to stay in town to do school work, as I mentioned in my last post.

Saturday morning the temperature was 40 degrees when I got up about 6 am but it quickly warmed up into the 70's once the sun peeked over the mountains. A perfect day for a trip into Mineral Basin. I can't think up enough superlatives to describe our day. Mineral Basin is....a basin or a bowl surrounded by beautiful mountains. The basin itself is just below timber line and most of the mountains surrounding it are 13,000 feet or taller. To make things even more spectacular, the wildflowers were all in bloom. I'll just let some pictures do the talking....














































Saturday night K acted as chef and we dined sumptuously on fresh ham, mashed potatoes and a variety of other sides. This really hit the spot after our day in the mountains.

Sunday morning K and Too Tall - Two Timing took a kayak ride on Cottonwood Lake while Guitar, Pic-E and myself explored another old mining road right above the campground. Noontime came all too soon and we had to head back to the city.

I'm not sure how we're going to be able to top this trip. It was one of those perfect things where everything just fell into place.....but we're sure going to try.

Thanks for visiting.

A Circle for The Circle

There hasn't been much to report about the activities of The Circle lately but this weekend we decided to get together for a picnic dinner and a hike in Roxborough State Park. I guess my post about Checking the Bloom had piqued their interest. Guitar and Pic-E had been there before but K and Too Tall, Two Timing had not and I was anxious to show them this little jewel

Sunday afternoon we all gathered at a picnic area a mile or so outside of the State Park. Strange as it seems this State Park has no facilities for picnicking? Chicken salad, quesadillas, pork and beans, layered green salad and margarita pie all washed down with a little bit of Framboise Lambic. My mouth is watering again from just thinking about it. A perfect dinner for the June afternoon of the year. If this is how the rest of June is going to go, I'm really excited.

After a very relaxing outdoor dinner where we all had the chance to catch up on the events of the last couple of weeks, we packed up and headed for Roxborough. I was about 6:30 by this time, cooling off with a nice little breeze....things are really going our way! The park is open until 9pm and I didn't expect that there would be many people there on a Sunday afternoon. I was correct and we pretty well had the place to ourselves.

We decided to take the Fountain Valley Trail. A 2.2 mile loop (hence the post title "Circle for The Circle") which I think gives a good overview of the park. It was also a perfect way to work off the daiquiri pie we has just eaten!

I was surprised at how many more wildflowers had bloomed since I was there just 3 days ago. It's still no where near bloom but things are beginning to "bust out"

About a third of the way into the loop, the ladies who were walking ahead of the men, stopped and pointed ahead. There on the trail was a black fox. Now I've seen a lot of red foxes before but had never seen a black fox. I tried to get a picture but he hopped into the brush before I could. Then as we were talking about how cool that was, he came back out of the brush and stared at us for a few seconds before disappearing again. Seems he was as curious about us as we were of him.

The rest of the hike was much less eventful....thank goodness. That's an odd statement you say? Well, in this case "discretion is the better part of valor". When we got back to the ranger station a little while later, the ranger said that a momma black bear and her cub had been spotted on the trail we were on, just a little bit before we finished the hike.

The ranger also said that he had seen the black fox only once and it is a rare sighting so we felt pretty lucky.

By about 8:30 we were headed home. A great gathering of The Circle with great food, great friends and a most enjoyable nature walk.

Thanks for visiting.

Checking the Bloom

It's getting time for the wildflowers to start blooming around here. I missed the main bloom at Roxborough State Park last year and I kicked myself about it for months. I'm not about to let it slip by me again this year so yesterday I took a hike at this pretty park.

I didn't get down there until mid afternoon and thought that it might be a little warm for a long hike. Turned out that is was not too hot and a delightful breeze made things very comfortable.

This place is absolutely incredible when all the flowers are in bloom. The blue, white and yellow flowers contrast the red rock and Colorado cobalt blue skies. It's heaven for nature enthusiasts and photographers as well...and I happen to be both. It's also a great place for birding, something I am just beginning to appreciate.

The good new is that it will probably be about a week and a half to two weeks to the peak of the bloom. The very first blooms are just beginning to appear now. The bad news is that between CaJenn's wedding and my trip to see my Dad, The Colonel, I may miss the high point again this year. If I do however, it won't be for lack of trying. I'll go by there once more before we leave for the wedding on Thursday and will be able to get in at least one more look see the week following the wedding.

CaJenn left a comment on my last post "Do You Know The Way To San Jose", saying that the picture of her and her husband to be is possibly the worst picture in existence of the both of them? Looked pretty good to me but that is probably the "Daddy Eyes" filter on my part. I promise I post a really good picture in about 10 days!

I spoke with The Colonel today and am glad to report that he seems to be doing pretty well under the circumstances. He was in enough pain yesterday that he was taken back to the hospital to see if perhaps there was a broken bone somewhere that had been overlooked. Fortunately not, and he's back at the continuing care facility. This morning he was in good spirits and fairly sharp of mind. I've got my fingers and toes crossed for him.

Thanks for visiting.