Needles of Iron: colorado

...to Mount Evans. Oh, we drove!

Apparently, the original plan, back in the day, was to connect Long's Peak, Mount Evans, and Pikes Peak, all fourteeners, with a peak to peak highway. For those not from Colorado, a fourteener is a peak above 14,000 feet. That's really pretty high. Above treeline, which is about 11,400 in these parts. Oxygen is...different up there. Like less. Noticeably less.

But I digress. Back to the Peak to Peak Highway. It proved to be unfeasible at the time, which was...I forget...back in the day...when the day was 1920? 1930? Up above treeline, weather can be brutal. It was 90F in Denver on Sunday. It was 50F at the summit. On August 2nd. Heat of the day. That's the middle of the alpine summer.

But gorgeous? Bee-yo-tee-full! (P.S. I swear that I did nothing to this photo but size it down a bit. Honest. The colors are as they were captured by my little point and shoot. It is a simple fact that the sky is bluer and the trees/grass is greener here in Colorado. I am sorry. It cannot be helped. Don't be hatin' me for it...)

And there are flowers! Kings Crown (or Queens...I can never keep them straight).

And we saw mountain goats! I have only seen real live mountain goats like these up in Glacier, and then with a telescope. These were just over a ridge off the road. Hard to see them, I know, and there is a baby! almost in the middle of the photo. The grownups were all sheddy and ratty looking. One of the coolest parts of the day. Seriously. (Lynne, these were the real thing!)

As we were walking back to the car, after the goat siting, I spied this, a Big-Rooted Spring Beauty. That's the for-real name.

We made it to the top...of this sign. No, really, we made it to the summit. How could we not. We were in the car! One other thing about the Mount Evans road...it's the highest paved road in North America.

It was this guy's shift to entertain the touristas. (noon to four, sit on the rock by the road and let them take pictures....what a job...) It's a marmot, and related to the groundhogs back east.

Artsy sky shot, just in case I couldn't get any closer to the alpine sunflower in the center.

But then I did! It's the largest of the alpine flowers, and stores up energy for...alot...of years before it finally blooms, sets seed, then that is all. Or so I read somewhere. I am pretty sure I am remembering that right.

Also in this patch of National Forest, there is the northern most stand of bristlecone pines in North America. These were cool. Really really old. Sloooo-ooow growing.