Young Gulch Trail

A day feeling frustrated while hiking near Fort Collins, Colorado

I do not handle change very well, so when I’m out of a routine, I often get flustered, annoyed, and angry. Recently, I had one of those weeks where my routine was thrown off. The week started off with a cybersecurity conference. Because I was out of office, my Tuesday was spent catching up on email and was, unexpectedly, full of meetings. This then threw off my plan to work on a project throughout the week. Sprinkle in some angry emails from colleagues, my chronic illness flaring all week, and needing to leave town quickly on Friday… it was a week, to say the least.

I was at least excited to get to Fort Collins and hike a new-to-me trail with my in-laws. The hike started off straight uphill, which was tough. But I had my camera, and in the distance, the light hit some rocks just right. I grabbed my camera and tried to focus on the rock, but the camera wasn’t “working.” I pulled it back from my face to see what was wrong and realized I only had my fixed 100 mm macro lens.

And that pissed me right off. It was the cherry on top of my shitty week.

I let my anger get the best of me, and it showed in the photos that I took. I felt little inspiration and definitely tried too hard to get some good images. My compositions were unusual due to the fixed lens length, and I struggled to correct the harsh lighting between the cloudy start and the sunny finish. Lightroom did a lot of heavy lifting with these images.

The wildfire burn line from the High Park Fire

This was one of the most beautiful horses I’ve seen in person. It was part of a group of volunteers on the trail, participating in a Forest Service search and rescue activity.

My mother-in-law LOVES wildflowers and promptly informed us that this is a star lily.

There were burned trees all over the trail.

This was a subtle reminder from the trail to just enjoy the ride.

Young Gulch Trail was destroyed by wildfire in 2012 and then by flood in 2013. As I read more about the High Park fire, I realized I don't remember much about it because the Waldo Canyon Fire happened in Colorado Springs only a week later. The Waldo Canyon Fire was my first experience with a wildfire, and it shifted my world. My mom recently told me that farmers in Iowa were burning during a red flag warning, and I was aghast. But I know that’s because Iowans don’t understand how destructive a wildfire is. Yes, they understand tornadoes, and now derechos, but not wildfires.

Young Gulch Trail was painstakingly rebuilt between 2014 and 2019. These log bridge crossings were part of the rebuild. I will say that a few of the crossings were a bit hairy. I tapped into my balance (from yoga) and stared a few feet ahead of me at the log to ensure I did not fall into the cold river.

These pictures do not do the wildfire scar justice. Because I had a fixed lens, I couldn’t get a close capture of the bare landscape with stick trees or how green the hillsides were. My father-in-law told me to imagine, in a few more years, how the hills would be carpeted with wildflowers.

Despite the desolate landscape, it was quite beautiful. I hadn’t hiked through such a large burn scar before.

Every bridge crossing had a Forest Service tag on it.

The Jeffrey party hiking through the burn.

Alpine Anemone with a bonus fly

An unopened Pasqueflower

---

After the five-mile round-trip hike, we met up with my brother-in-law at Stodgy Brewing for a “May the Fourth be with you” event. While everyone ordered their beer flights, I went to take pictures of their spring flowers. I don’t drink anymore, so I figured that I might as well keep myself busy, especially since I only had my macro lens!

I loved the contrast of the sunny pink blossoms and the shadowed blue sky.

The day might have started off rough, and the evening was capped off with a chronic illness flare, but the hike and the brewery were a nice treat in between. I especially enjoyed the gorgeous Colorado afternoon weather.

Cheers.