Letters to a friend...: Even more wild flowers. Rustler Gulch trail, Crested Butte

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Even more wild flowers. Rustler Gulch trail, Crested Butte

The next morning after hiking Beckwith Pass (click here to see it - In search of wild beauty...) we returned, circled around Crested Butte and drove towards Gothic, a truly beautiful ghost town where we again didn't stop :) We headed to the Rustler Gulch trailhead.

We left our car on the side of the road and... immediately another adventure awaited us :) Just a couple minutes of walking and the trail crossed the East River. Usually at the end of July this is not a problem, the river is ankle-deep and just a few feet wide... But that year, say thanks to the rains, the river was wider and much deeper. Crossing it looked challenging... While we were thinking about how to attack it, the group of four appeared behind us, and without saying a word, they took off their boots and stepped into the river. They had some water shoes in their pockets too (well prepared gang they were), so it only took them a minute or two to cross the river and disappear between the trees further down the trail... We weren't ready to make a decision yet, but now we knew how deep the water was - about knee-deep. We were still discussing the crossing when a young couple from New York stopped for a second, asked a couple of questions and 5 minutes later informed us the river bed wasn't rocky, but the water was cold. By this point we had made up our minds and took off our boots... Two minutes later we were wading in the shallow water and complaining about New Yorkers... They were lying to us! The water wasn't cold at all! It was ICE COLD! Before we were halfway there, our feet went numb and we couldn't feel anything... But... it was too late to turn around, so we continued until we landed on the other side and put our boots on again. But... the good news was (even we didn't know it just yet) - this was our last adventure that day, if you don't count crossing the river on the way back to our car ;).

Soon we were ascending the trail and enjoying the blooms... We had been amazed by the flowers at Beckwith Pass the day before, but there were twice as many flowers here. Maybe three times more... All colors and all shapes...

So we took our time and walked slowly, looking around and breathing in the air filled with aromas... I don't think I've experienced something like that before...

The hillsides were amazingly lush. They were covered with a thick layer of green grass and looked absolutely incredible. But... do you see a thin strip of snow on the top? Isn't it crazy to see snow right above the grass (and this was the end of July, if you remember).

The meadows were covered with blooming flowers. There were so many of them...

And... the grass and flowers were tall. Definitely taller than we were ;)

We tried to ignore the fact the sky wasn't blue. The gray sky was bothering us and pretty soon we decided we needed to turn back, before it started to rain. We knew we had to cross the river again and were fine with that, but we wanted to avoid the water from above.

But even though the sky was getting darker by the minute, we were still moving really slowly. The surroundings looked so beautiful and colorful!

But finally we were back. We almost ran the last few hundred feet after crossing the river in anticipation of rain... And... we did it right! The second we closed the car door, all the hell went loose... It wasn't rain, it was a waterfall! If we had gotten to the car a minute later, we would have been soaked in a second. So, we were lucky that day!

We planned returning back to Denver that same day, but first we needed something to eat. We had some trail food so we drove back to Crested Butte, circled around the town and stopped at Peanut Lake. The rain was behind us and everything around us was beautiful, clean and shiny after the flood. And the sky became blue again! This is why we love Colorado so much!