This past weekend I went on a short hike several hours drive south of town. This hike is close to a high mountain pass - Molas Pass which stands at an elevation just under 11,000 feet.
This hike also coincides with a portion of the Colorado Trail and if the rest of the trail has half the views that this short hike does, I will be seriously considering hiking the trail over a summer in the next few years.
The hike starts with a winding trail through some fairly open spruce forest.
There are many meadows along the way, but most of the summer wildflowers are gone for the year. There were a couple stragglers here and there if you were paying attention.
Another thing there were plenty of were toadstools.
Some very brightly colored mushrooms in the shade of an old spruce. Don't worry, I'm not even an amateur mushroom hunter and I'm pretty sure these are toxic. I wouldn't touch them, but they sure looked pretty.
They even occurred in fairy rings along the trail. Neat huh?
Along the way there were also some very old, very tall remnants of some long ago fire.
Once you got above the tree line the views were spectacular.
Unfortunately I didn't go much further than the edge of tree line thanks to some dark clouds hovering above the mountain I was hiking on. I decided to cut the hike short and none too soon. I felt the first drops of rain fall as I neared the end of the trail and got in the car just as the downpour began. Sometimes you just get lucky.
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