My Short Hike on the Colorado Trail

With enough time in Durango for only one short, late-afternoon hike, I decided on the Colorado Trail. Of course I realized I wouldn't be hiking the entire 567 miles to Denver. I wouldn't even be completing a segment, of which there are thirty-three. In fact, I would only be traversing a short distance along Segment 28, the very last stretch of the Colorado Trail when you start in Denver. The segment extends 21.5 miles from Kennebec Trailhead to Junction Creek Trailhead, my starting point.

I originally hoped to reach Gudy's Rest, a stop along the trail that offers a panoramic view of Durango and the surrounding San Juan Range of the Rocky Mountains. However the four-and-a-half miles was a little longer than I had the time or energy for, so I turned around after three miles, at the bridge that crosses Junction Creek in an idyllic and restful setting. In fact, that's the way I would describe most of the hike's peaceful landscape.

If my path wasn't in view of the creek, I almost always heard it babbling a short distance away. Wide and lined with tall fir, spruce, and pines trees, Junction Creek was about as beautiful as I could imagine any stream in the Rockies in nice weather.

However what probably entices many trekkers to any part of the Colorado Trail are the views of the peaks. And I found my money shot, only a couple of minutes into the hike when a mountain range came into view. It was sharp and naked, ascending above the tree line with accumulations of winter snow still withstanding the high-altitude light of the lengthening late-spring days. I can't be sure what summits I was gazing at: Silver Mountain, Snowstorm Peak, Lewis Mountain? If it were any one of these, I was looking at mountains that were well over 12,000 feet high, comparable in size to my home state Arizona's highest peak, Mount Humphrey's. But those numbers are just a beginning: Colorado is home to fifty-eight mountains that are over 14,000 feet high.

But the view that afternoon was fleeting, quickly hidden by trees and the close, steep mountainsides that shelter a miles-long canyon. I would actually get a better view of the majestic scenery the following morning when my drive to Moab brought me through Molas pass north of Durango. Stopping at an overlook, where Segment 25 of the Colorado Trail crosses the highway, I photographed Snowdon Peak rising over 13,000 feet in elevation.

Meanwhile my six-mile scenic roundtrip hike the day before was quite easy, with a gradual elevation gain - less than a thousand feet - and very few steep grades. The trail, and my shortened route specifically, seemed popular with locals from Durango who wanted some exercise or to walk their dogs. There were a few mountain bikers but no backpackers or horses, and definitely no one who was starting or finishing a quest along the entire Colorado Trail.

Unsurprisingly, I witnessed a Steller's jay, a mountain stalwart of the West, as we drove into the parking lot at the trailhead. Numerous American robins populated the trail, along with a number of swallowtails and a few chickadees. I saw one flycatcher, probably a Western wood peewee. And I tried to photograph what might have been a western tanager. Apparently most of the local birdlife congregated on the Animas River, where Junction Creek would empty five or six miles away. Or maybe the babble of the creek drowned out the birdsong. However it didn't take any tweets to notice that tiger swallowtails abounded, especially at a muddy spot above the creek where water seeped. Dozens of the silent butterflies were congregating on the ground, imbibing in drink.

I also encountered the largest chipmunk I could imagine which was actually a golden-mantled squirrel. I would see its cousin in the squirrel family, a yellow-bellied marmot, at several stops along the highway as I drove the high mountain passes out of the area the next day. My eyes were on the lookout for bighorn sheep that day too, but alas, I witnessed nothing. It would take some time, like days on the Colorado Trail, to really appreciate the breadth of wildlife in this corner of the Rocky Mountains. A two-hour hike into the wild and then a fast drive through it wasn't even a start.