About this blog:
We love traveling. We always capture tons of pictures from wherever we've been and we like sharing our traveling experiences with our friends. So, this is how this blog began - as short stories with pictures in an attempt to share where we've been and what we've seen. Even not stories , but just notes. Nothing serious and big. Mostly I'm writing these stories on a rush and sometimes even don't have time to re-read them. So, I apologize in advance for possible typos here and there. There can be some factual errors or inaccuracies and they even might be corrected one day. Don't hesitate to contact me if you find something that needs to be fixed and don't expect these notes to be a perfect novels ;) The stories in this blog are not in chronological order, but I will try to remember to put the date of the trip. So... welcome to this blog and, hopefully, you will find something interesting and have the same feeling we had when we were there. Let's go...
And... by the way... all pictures and texts in this blog are protected by International and USA Copyright laws, so if you'd like to repost or use something on your page - contact me first.
Using anything published here without permission is violation of the law and... it isn't really nice...

Sunday, July 31, 2022

Saturday, visiting Three Sisters ;)

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 ;)


So far so good I thought while the trail was going round the mountain and slowly descending to the creek running between two hills.
 

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...


So I stayed and looked at the boulders, not knowing yet what it was ;) Believe it or not, but these boulders between the trees are actually a trail. No, not the trail you are supposed to walk on... But if you climb up these boulders and climb more and steepier ones you find yourself on the top of the butte looking around from the real bird's view! It wasn't technically climbing, but definitely not hiking up the top of the hill. If you would like to do it yourself, ask first if you are skilled enough to do it before you try...
 

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...


In this picture you can see both - the North and the Middle Sister. I think next time I am going to concur another one, are you in? ;)


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 ;)



As I mentioned before, the trail is generally good and easy (if you don't follow my lead and climb on the sister's heads).  Someplace it is rocky or even steep, but mostly it is really good.
 

...with some thistles already out of bloom and looking as if they really can use a haircut ;)



You know, this is funny, but there are not only sisters there, but also a brother. Sitting aside and looking at the three sisters, this hill also provides great views but with much easier access to the viewpoint - you can hike or even bike there. Nice family - three sisters running wild and unattended and older brother, homey and quiet ;) By the way, this is a view of the meadows where we started our hike...
 

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.

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