We traveled to Crested Butte for Independence Day and explored the area
and it was stunning.... We started our trip with a hike to Lake Irwin
(click here to see -
Lake Irwin and continued here -
Peanuts and Meridian lakes). Crested Butte is Wildflower Capital of Colorado
and we expected to see the flowers in full bloom. But,
despite the abundance of rain and warm days that year, the peak of
blooming still was a couple of weeks away, so we decided to return there
again. And three weeks later we were back there and started with
Beckwith Pass trail.
During our preparation, we
found several "Secret trails" that promised great views and tons of
flowers. Two of them caught our attention and we decided to explore them both. First, we passed Crested Butte
and took County Road 12 to Kebler Pass (yep, we skipped the town this time). After about 20 minutes of
driving, we parked our car under the aspen trees and headed along the creek towards Beckwith Pass.
The trail crawled between huge aspens and
tall grass... At first we found quite a lot of mushrooms - beautiful red
cats, but
weren't able to collect them (what a bummer, you know I am a big fan of
mushrooms, click here to check it out -
Mmmushroommmms ;)). We continued to walk through the woods, surrounded by
flowers and breathing in the warm fragrant air. At times we felt even
slightly drunk with the aroma enveloping the forest.
It took a while, but we
finally
left the woods behind and began to climb the hillsides, enjoying the endless meadows and mountain ranges in the distance.
We walked slowly because all the meadows along the path were
covered with blooming flowers - white, yellow, red, purple, blue... all
the colors and petals created an
wicker cloth and we couldn't stop looking at it ;) It was just like an amazingly nice dream!
It
took a few hours to get to Beckwith Pass because we had no reason to
speed up. Once there, we took in the wild vistas and held our breath...
We climbed up the hill and found a nice flat rock to sit and have lunch.
We were about 1,100 feet higher
than we started the trail and were tired. But the air there was so clear
and fresh... not sure what we needed more at this point - the food or
the air... maybe just a good rest ;)
We
refueled ourselves and turned back. We had been on the road since early
morning and were a bit overwhelmed with this hike. That's why we didn't
stop much on our way back to the car...
We were in
Crested Butte in about half an hour and first stopped for some ice
cream. We then walked through the town streets
and stopped
for dinner
at Secret Stash Pizzeria . This place is absolutely incredible - it's
filled with tons of artifacts from all over the world - one
of the owners spent eight years traveling and sending everything
interesting she found back to the USA. We decided on "Where's the Beef?"
pizza (nice name, huh?) and enjoyed every last bit of it ;)
Pictures were taken on July 25, 2015.
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