Rattlesnakes and mystery trails

I finally got around to looking at my pictures of Rocky Mountain National Park! Here are just a few. I'm quite disappointed that my battery died before we even hit the treeline, thank goodness I had enough battery left on my phone (I'm in love with the pano function for these beautiful sweeping vistas). 

I'm also excited about the rocks, flora, and fauna. What a gneiss rock! My apologies for the lame joke! There were many Stellar's Jays flying around, mocking the hikers. 

Last weekend we had a little bit of time to explore more. We took this amazing canyon highway through Clear Creek Canyon that leads to Idaho Springs, a quaint old mining town. We were looking for a hike that I found on mytrails app, however when we went up the mountain about 20 miles, Siri told us we had reached the destination with no trail head in sight. So we took the Scenic Byway to Mt. Evans back down, stopped at a great barbecue joint in Idaho Springs and went home (Nate had to work that evening). 

Before the Packer game, a few of us went for hike up North Table Mountain (mentioned earlier). We took a different trail (Lithic, to North Table Mountain Loop). Ben estimates that we did about 4 miles with going up ~900ft. It was 80 degress on the mountain, so hot! The trail was narrow and surrounded by rabbit brush, prickly pear cacti, yucca, etc. There was also a small rattlesnake up one of the switchbacks. It started rattle and Ben didn't see it up moved past it very quickly. I was following behind and immediately switched Kobi to the opposite side of the trail. I saw the little guy coiled up and hiding. It has been quite a few years since I've seen a rattlesnake, however my heart was racing just as fast as the first time.

On the way down, we saw it again in the same place. This time it was started to venture out on the trail. Several mountain bikers carefully, but quickly rode past. I switched Kobi to the opposite side again and run up the upside of the mountain as fast as I could. My heart was racing again and the rattle was quite loud. Ben hypothesized that either the snake was very aggressive or possibly hurt and unable to move. Rattlesnakes! ugh! 

We are headed off to explore another place today, so stay tuned!

Love to all!