Missed Trail

I grew up coming to this place, hiking everywhere, up Medicine Bow Peak, taking trails to many of the lakes, and up and down countless logging roads exploring long forgotten cabin foundations. Assuming I had experienced every established trail around here along with several unestablished trails, I was surprised we had missed this one, which is the most spectacular hiking trail in the area with the exception perhaps the trail to the summit. The scenery along this particular trail is breathtaking and takes you along the base of the mountain range, by icy crystal lakes, small streams that are simply snow runoff, with pockets of dazzling wildflowers. And of course, no picture is going to do this paradise justice. In fact, I apologize if I have posted this picture before, but I just want to get sucked into the picture and be there NOW experiencing the fresh air and the exhilaration you feel there. It's magical.

Whenever we go somewhere, I always order hiking guides to wherever we're going. It's not as crucial now that our kids are getting older, but it's nice to have an overview of the area trails especially since most of us are on limited time. The book I got, one of those Falcon Guides, gave high praise to this trail. Despite having considerable knowledge of the area, this one major previously missed trail made my purchase worth every penny!

One trail not in the book, is what we always referred to as the "Stagecoach Road." There's the main highway 130 that goes over the mountain range, and then there's the "old" Hwy 130 which is a steep winding, curvy road with guardrails that aren't going to do you much good! It's one of those roads you pray you don't meet another car, and the entire edge of the road is crumbling, making it easy to visualize the entire road collapsing down the mountainside. My husband always laughs that I love the mountains so much when I am extremely terrified of heights!! But if you look down that old highway 130 road, there's a dirt road marked out with boulders along each side that pretty much parallels it. Even when I was a kid, this was referred to as the "Stagecoach Road." I don't know where it all started, but it certainly captured my imagination, to the point that now at the age of 43 I am filled with this eerie sense of the past as I look down at it. My attempts at getting a picture were unsuccessful, but the next time we go, I'm going to walk part of it so that I can get some shots and share it with my kids. It's not your typical dirt road.....at all. These trips west as a child started my fascination of pioneers and life in the past, beginning with that drive across Nebraska which never fails to vividly help me imagine covered wagons heading across the barren land. Then here in the mountains, as kids, we would go exploring, finding old logging camps, deserted graves, and even old cone top beer cans that my brother would collect! These little discoveries of the past made these vacations incredible and left us all with an appreciation of history that went beyond any textbook.

This is the old highway 130 (bad picture---doesn't show the scary drop off!!) followed by an old miner's cabin.






This is the time of year that I start thinking of our next vacation. To head to Wyoming is a huge undertaking for us, and I'm not sure if we'll be able to swing it this year. Unfortunately it's hard to top this, and the kids are already begging to go back, and I don't have many years left with them before they're off to college. Plus, with the forest dying from the beetle infestation, as described in an earlier post, I know that there are only a few years left of it looking the way it does now before it is changed forever. What to do.....What to do......?