You know I am always looking for some place nearby but nice to hike
on Saturdays. Something just in the distance of the stretched hand and
where one can walk and enjoy nice views (and... I like to find some
Mariposa Lilies there, one of my weaknesses).
So last Saturday I decided to go and explore Alderfer / Three Sisters Park just outside of Evergreen. I didn't have any high hopes and didn't expect much from the place so close to civilization (and I was wrong, by the way). But the reviews were quite positive and... it was, probably, the closest location outside of city limits I've tried, so, why not, huh? I didn't have a good plan which trails to try so I left it to chance and... honestly... it was a good idea ;) I started from the West trailhead and firstly walked along the wide and sunny meadow. Everything looked so beautiful in the early morning with the sun just rolling above the treeline...
And this sun is shining through the trees and blinding the hikers...
isn't it beautiful? Actually it was a fate - I didn't want to go against
the sun, so I turned to the left to follow the shadowy path around the
hill. If I didn't do that, my day could have turned out differently (in fact now I know it would have turned out just perfect in any case).
And, yes, Mariposa Lilies are not hard to find in the meadows, so I was already satisfied with the beginning of this hike ;)
The trail ducked into the woods and continued there, between tall
pines. That is what I wanted the most - enough sun to enjoy but a lot of
shadows to not be roasted on a spot.
And rocks everywhere, I would say this is a terrain I wanted to
see and at this point I was completely happy with my choice of location.
From time to time, a nice soothing green was disturbed with red
splashes - berries! Wild berries! I am not sure if these were wild Red
Currants or Gooseberries, but I always like to find some bushes and
enjoy the colors... regardless of the name ;)...
The pines are throwing their seeds everywhere and trying to grow
anywhere, and somehow they really like to land in the cracks of the huge
boulders and sprout there.
The trail was running up to the summit and I was on my way to go
around Mount Muhly. Relatively easy hike even though it moves up kinda
steep at this segment.
Steep but not long and just after a few minutes I was rewarded with
the trail heading downhill and also with amazing views to the hills far
from me. That was exactly what one needs on Saturday when he wants to
forget about work and big city life ;)
I like this. This is an amazing combination - foxberry so common
for northern places and cacti that came from the south. Truly, Colorado
is the place where Alaska meets Arizona ;)
And... look at the view! Can stay here for hours just watching and... doing nothing else :)
Finally I went down the hill and the landscape changed again. It
wasn't the meadow but the grassy wet forest surrounding the creek. The
grass was green and really lush. My feet got wet because of morning dew
but it didn't really matter. I just stayed, took a couple of pictures of
grass (yeah, kinda simple and even boring and when I looked up, I...
...met someone's big brown eyes carefully watching me. A deer ;)
She was just watching me and didn't try to run away, probably I didn't
look dangerous...
I guess some trust was established and after a few minutes of
scrutinizing me she slowly and gracefully moved along and crossed the
grass patch in a few slow jumps. I think the grass was too tall for her
to just walk...
But that wasn't the end of the meeting with a nice stranger. Just a
minute after the mother deer left the spot the baby followed her ;)
Even adult deer didn't like walking there but for the fawn it was,
probably, impossible to walk through this tall grass so it gave me some laughing moments
jumping really high, like it had springs not legs ;) What a nice day I
thought and left them on their way to have some lunch...
A few more flowers and I turned to the Three Sisters trail, passed some big boulders just to found out the trail was really steep now. It
was moving up fast and winding between the rocks and trees.
Three Sisters are three high rocky buttes staying in the line and
peeping out of the trees. Actually there are four of them because the
North Sister is actually two separate hills, but... it doesn't really
matter. So I was hiking up to the summit just between the North and
Middle Sisters and soon stopped there, at the bottom of a huge bouldery
hill that looked absolutely rough, wild and unapproachable...
But the reward is great, believe me! And no pictures can give you a good impression of what you are able to see from there.
Actually you need to climb up and down around this tree to get there and come back ;)
This is the Middle Sister (and I didn't climb this one). North Sister looks pretty much the same from a distance ;)
You can see for miles from here! And the views are so peaceful... Come and see for yourself!
OK, let's climb around this boulder but... not return on the trail just yet...
The North Sister is a kinda two headed dragon - there are really
two hills so once I stepped down from the one, I immediately climbed the
second one ;) Actually climbing this one was more challenging, the path
was way shorter but more difficult... But I was rewarded with the views
again!
See... here is the "second head", the one I climbed on first. And you can see the Evergreen Lake just behind it. Now looking at it I cannot believe just 5 minutes ago I was on the top of this one...
It was nice being up there, but... I still have some more trails to
explore so I climbed down and... continued on the trail, going around
and slowly turning back to the parking lot.
Yeah, I cannot stay on the path and am always roaming around
searching for something nice to look at... Pine trees or cacti, everything is good ;)
...with some thistles already out of bloom and looking as if they really can use a haircut ;)
I was sitting on the rock on the Brother and breathing warm morning
air when some movements far down there caught my attention. There was a
small flock of birds occupying the old and dry tree... flying there and
leaving for some business and coming back in just a minute or two...
Let's play some puzzle game here, shouldn't we? - how many birds can you spot on the tree (don't overdo it, the answer is super simple ;) )?
Watching the birds I regretted that I don't have a good long range
lens for this kind of pictures... Maybe one day I need to get one, for
occasions like this...
At this point I was already tired (close to three hours of hike and
over 5 miles of mountain trails) so I headed back to my car. Also the
temperature jumped up a good 20 degrees and a nice morning was followed
by a toasty day. But it was impossible not to stop at the meadow and
enjoy the quiet and peaceful landscape and lush grass... By the way -
there are Three Sisters and the Brother is just outside the picture on
the right ;)
Sorry, I know, this is Mariposa Lily again - so simple and elegant
and once more I couldn't just pass by without capturing this beauty for my
memory :)
Finally I reached the parking lot and turned around to see the last stretch of the trail - straight and so alluring.
What can I say - amazing hike. Just over 3 hours and shy of 6.5
miles. I was tired (and a bit surprised by that) but looking at the
elevation graph I understood why. Even the elevation doesn't change much
there, but walking up and down, up and down, I had a total elevation gain of 1500 feet! I felt like doing about
half of that, actually. And also climbing sisters (totally optional and
not included into the main route) added some tiredness. But... I would
say - this is an amazing park where one can find everything - nice walk
along the meadows and easy hike around the mountains or relatively heavy
hike and even climb. There are some more trails I didn't explore, so I
think I will come there again and it would be easy to have a lighter or
heavier hike on demand.
Pictures were taken on August 30, 2022.
Absolutely gorgeous hike!!
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