Sunday, August 11, 2013

Taking a Trail Unknown

After hiking the Section 16 trail numerous times, every time wondering about the Intemann Trail fork, he and I decided to hike it yesterday. The Intemann Trail begins somewhere in Manitou - many people had told me it came out at Crystal Hills Road, but I'd never seen the trail head there. So we kind of started backward with the purpose of discovering where we would come out. 

This, to me, is so typical of what a Colorado mountain trail looks like. 


We saw a branch off for an "Intermittent Waterfall," and took 
it, thinking that surely after all this rain...

But no. 
It was slightly wet, but that was all. I'm really not sure how intermittent it really is, because if we've had this much rain and there was no waterfall, it must be dry almost all the time. 

It was hot and sunny and a lot of the trail had no shade. 
But after 2.6 miles of hiking, this is where we ended up. 


At water.


Does it get any better?

We took our shoes off and soaked our hot, sore feet for a while.



Right around the time I started thinking, "I wish we'd brought some food," I spotted this:

I did some of this:

And spotted this:

So after a bit of this ("No apple is safe," he said):


We ended up with this:

I ate enough to be satisfied and then, our bodies cooled and fed, we started back. 

The return to the trailhead was nice because cloud cover had moved in. 

Here are a few shots of beauty from the hike:

Mushrooms ranged from smaller than my pinkie nail...

To quite a bit larger.

Dainty flowers.







Fallen tree

Moss


Gorgeous cumulus clouds.

Lesson Learned: sometimes going back to where you've been before but taking a different path leads to being refreshed, satiated, awed by beauty (and maybe a little tired, but worth it).

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