Colorado Station to University Station

First snow hike of the autumn!

This was a pleasant hike. There was about six inches of snow on the ground. The air was chilly but not freezing and the cloud cover kept the sun from blazing down. The above photo is Little Dry Creek Trail. I was on my way out. I had to detour down to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription before I hit the trail.

The hike began at Colorado Station and retraced a stretch of my last hike down to the Schlessman YMCA.

There is a variety of churches and church architecture along the way. This is the Most Precious Blood Catholic Church of Colorado Boulevard.

Most of Colorado Boulevard looks like this, gas stations, shopping centers, and office buildings, typical urban fair.

Here's what the weather was doing.

29.86 inches mercury (1.011 bar, pretty much normal sea level barometric pressure.) 41.4 ° Fahrenheit is a comfortable chill. The reason the snow is sticking around is that it's such a good insulator that the snow on top keeps the snow underneath from melting and the snow underneath keeps the snow on top cold. 43% humidity is pretty wet for Colorado. The consistent cloud cover helped to keep things stable. I didn't expect any storms and only got a few occasional flakes of snow.

If you look back in the blog, you can find other pictures of the University Hills Library (I demonstrated the difference between weight and mass in their elevator!). This photo is just for nostalgia.

And this is the real start of my hike. Here, Harvard Gulch emerges from underground as a storm sewer. It's pretty high right now with snow runoff. The water looks clean but I wouldn't drink it. It's not like there's stuff from toilets and washing machines but melted snow carries a lot of surface materials like street debris and leakage from cars. Still, a surprising amount of tiny plants and animals live there.

The gulch provides storm drainage and recreation (Harvard Gulch Trail runs from the emergence of the gulch to where it disappears underground near Broadway. I saw kids sledding on the broader banks). Less obviously, the stone reinforced banks and many water features inhibit erosion and the natural bed helps to cleanse the water before is pours into the South Platte River.

Harvard Gulch borders the University of Denver Campus. I've spent a lot of time there as there's a lot to see. Here's a picture of the sundial on the southern side of the Newman Arts Building. I hadn't seen some of the new buildings on campus so I decided to cut through on the way to University Station.

Much of the space between the buildings are gardens and malls.

Dan's Garden is a visual highlight of the Daniel Felix  Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science. In the winter, it transforms into a wonderland of snow and cascading waters.

The campus is quiet now on this snowy Sunday. There are certainly students and faculty strolling around, but the traffic is reduced and the snow muffles a lot of the usual noise.

The Chester M. Alter Arboretum with its water gardens is similarly subdued. 

The new student union building actually looks new. I didn't go in....I should some day. I like that glossy dark red exterior.

The art at the University of Denver Station is a blue metal plate cut out to show the off white concrete underneath. It's called "Reflective Discourse" and it was constructed by John Goe and Larry Argent. Argent is also the creator of the Big Blue Bear at the Colorado Convention Center.

Many of the shelters at the RTD light rail stations have the cable support design shown above. It's the same principle as the cable support bridges except what's being supported is a roof instead of a footpath.

There are not a lot of accessible observation platforms in the Denver skyline but there are plenty of parking garages and some of the best views in the area are on the top decks. So here's the requisite shot of the Rockies.

Oops.... where'd they go?

Well, it's not all bad. This area relies a lot on the snow packs on the mountains for it's year round water and those clouds are packing the snow in. Here's a picture I took near home a couple of days later on a grocery run.

Here are some more shots from the top deck.

The Denver skyline

The plains

Colorado Center

The University of Denver carillon Tower

The University of Denver

and more University of Denver

The next station-to-station "hike" will be more of a homecoming. This area used to be one of my past neighborhoods and I have good memories of the church I used to attend. I'll be getting up really early so I can make a morning service, and then I'll make a first-or-the-month supply run.

There are just two more station-to-station hikes on the E/H lines before I turn my attention to Cherry Creek 

--- Snow business ---
(2016)

There's no business like snow business

Most of my life, I lived in a place (the southeast US) where snow was a rare commodity. Up to the 70s, we would get at least one good snow a year but things changed when I was in college. The snow went away and the armadillos and coyotes moved into Alabama. Now there are capybara in Georgia. Things change.

Now, a light dusting of snow in the southeast will shut everything down.

The year I moved to Colorado was the snowiest year since. When I left Selma, it started snowing on me just south of Birmingham and it snowed on me all the way to Broomfield and continued snowing until well into the spring months.

So I've had three good snow hikes in my life. I'm not counting the walks to work when I was a tutor in Broomfield or the many grocery runs in the snow. There was one SEHowl at Mount Cheaha in Alabama where a snow storm covered the area in March, followed by a tornado that blacked out Anniston and went on to hit Atlanta.

I learned to wear socks when I slept in cold weather. Being the host, I was the first person at the Howl and the only Howler the first night. I went to sleep listening to rain on my tent and woke up to a strangely dark morning. When I unzipped the tent fly, snow cascaded in. I also noticed that I couldn't feel my feet. I didn't even look at them. I put my clothes on and drove to the developed campground up the road. When I got to the showers I examined my feet and was relieved to find that I would not lose any toes.

After my morning ritual, I hiked up the mountain to the country store at the top.

I love snow.

I've also hiked twice to Mount Carbon in the snow. On the first hike, the snow had melted from the paved path and I still considered Mount Carbon to be a necessary evil that stood between me and Morrison. I've walked to Morrison several times and there's no way around the two hundred foot rise on the path. I either take the trail over Mount Carbon or I take the road over the shoulder of Green Mountain. Neither are very pleasant and I had always considered both to be rather ugly - until I tried the Mount Carbon Loop Trail.

This trail shows Mount Carbon at it's best, following a series of switchbacks along the flanks of the hill to the summit. On the way, it provides some spectacular vistas.

Earlier this year, I decided to hike to the top of Mount Carbon in the snow using the Loop Trail.  I've hiked in just about every kind of weather available where I have lived, but this was my first snow hike. I started around 8:00 on a 2 degree but sunny morning.My Neanderthal physiology kept me nice and warm with no more than my usual cold weather get-up - overalls, sweater, and leather jacket.

I found that my body had to adapt to the cycle of focusing on each step to avoid crashing to the ground. About half way to the end of the hike up, I no longer had to concentrate on my pace and could enjoy the scenery.

The hike up Mount Carbon was grueling. The trail is a ledge and doesn't provide much room for mistakes. A fall probably wouldn't kill me, but the scrubby brush blanketing the hill wouldn't be pleasant. Still the view was spectacular and well worth the work.

(Mount Carbon in the snow)

(Mount Carbon Loop Trail)

(Green Mountain from Mount Carbon)

(The ledge)

(Mount Morrison)

(Denver skyline)

(Almost to the top)


I made the top ("Summit" would be an appropriate verb but it seems a little overblown for such a small prominence.) a little after noon. It was 27 degrees and I felt great.

(Me on top)

I gazed out at the Rockies and down at the tiny shelters of the ice fishers on Bear Creek Lake.

The really nice surprise came when I started down. Gravity did all the work. I felt like I was drifting down the side and the descent was quick and painless.

I made it back home before dark in great spirits. This was the hike where I tried out new methods to prevent the plantar blisters which had plagued my hikes all my life and the simple step of sticking duct tape on the balls of my feet did the trick.

By the way, you might have noticed that some of these posts are dated 2016. Those were written last year. I wanted to have a backlog built up so I could keep a fairly consistent stream of new posts appearing. Also, my adventures will be somewhat topical. The posts I wrote last year are general subjects - the blog, my geographical area, resources, and such. In 2017, I'll be looking at philosophy, psychology, parapsychology, and religion around Bear Creek and Denver.