No Trail Ridge, But 500 Pronghorns & A Forest Fire

We're back from vacation, and the trip itself had its highs and lows. Would it be too weird to say the highest high was a low?

I love Trail Ridge in RMNP. It's a mere 12,000+ feet up, with your reward being a lovely store with all sorts of clothes and souvenirs. That's in the unlikely case that you weren't already rewarded by spectacular views of valleys below, peaks above, fall aspen colors, and critters. Let's start at the lower elevations with male elk and mule deer, peacefully doing their thing alongside the road while waiting for the rut to start. Higher up is a variety of birds not found in either Minnesota or Arizona, at least as far as I have seen. Around 10,000 feet is a huge turn-out, generally overrun with tourists with cameras. Steve obligingly shot a family's picture with their own camera while a hungry spoiled chipmunk bit the mom who let her fingers rest on the rock ledge.

They said they liked the picture, though.

I decided that would be a lengthy stop. My lungs (yep, still there from last summer) needed a chance to adjust to the altitude, and there was a nice restroom facility there, as far as waterless accommodations go. This one was particularly interesting since the cold breeze comes straight up the mountain, into whatever openings it finds in the building, and out the seats you're sitting on.

Feeling able to breathe normally again, we proceeded up the trail. Steve kept telling me we didn't have to reach the very top, but I stubbornly persisted until the point where I started wondering if the next things I was going to see were black spots before my eyes. I turned around. Up on the tundra one can see traffic a long way away, handy when there are few "real" spots for turnarounds. As a consolation for missing the store, we hit the big tourist store right outside the Falls River entrance. Even better, they had shirts in our sizes, and I found one of the most beautiful mugs I've ever seen: a Stellers Jay on a snowy branch. It made the trip home nicely, thank you.

We spent most of the rest of our time in the area visiting Steve's relatives. Knowing political viewpoints tend to differ from ours, a whole lot of other topics were covered and great food was had.

Heading south from Pueblo the morning we left, over the prairie which covers much of the land before you hit more wooded terrain, we started noticing pronghorn antelope, one of my favorite western critters. Too bad we were on the freeway with no place to legally or safely stop for pictures, since many of the herds were close to the road. And herds they were. For a while they were less than a road mile apart, mostly a dozen or more in each herd. By the time we ran out of their habitat, they were done with their morning feed and were laying down, with one or two per herd standing guard. Steve insists we passed a thousand of them in that hour or so. I couldn't swear to that, though as driver I was too occupied to try to count. I'm very comfortable with claiming at least 500, however.

One more thing stood out on this otherwise familiar route. Coming across I-40, by the time we hit Winslow we can generally get a good view of the San Francisco Peaks. So far we had only noticed a band of smog or some kind of dirty air stretching as far across the horizon as we could see, south to north. No mountains. Jokingly we wondered if it was pollution blowing up from Phoenix. Our blue sky got browner as we drove, and the smell of wood smoke invaded the car. The longer it lasted the more varied our guesses as to its origin. Finally I asked Steve to check whether I-17 was even still open, or closed due to some fire which we, being away, hadn't heard about. Out here a detour could mean a hundred extra miles or more. It was open, but meanwhile we had driven almost to Walnut Canyon before we finally could see Flagstaff's mountains, even longer before a band of blue appeared on our horizon. The smoke lasted until we'd turned south and made it past Mund's Park.

Once home and online again, I tried to research the source of the fire. My sources were filled with fires from the last few years, no matter what words I searched under. The only thing that came even close to what we'd seen/smelled and where was a reference to a controlled burn to get rid of brush covering the ground. In burning off detritus, a "real" forest fire would be a much smaller thing, and the area has snowy owls to protect.

With the miles and miles of smoke and poor visibility, there seemed very little control about what we'd passed. But hey, all the news is Florence and flooding these days, so I wonder what it would take to mention if a fire had stayed under control, or maybe not so much.

ADDENDUM:

The local news finally reported a tragedy that may well be the cause of the fire. Nevermind that it took them several days after the fact to consider it news. Several days back, up in the Coconino Forest, a truck carrying 4 high school young men went off a 400 foot cliff while enjoying riding the trails. One has been identified, but the resulting wildfire has made it difficult to identify the others. Considering the extent of the smoke, I can understand the difficulty reaching the area and identifying the cause.