North Cheyenne Canyon

Helen Hunt Falls

After Kali and completed our hike at Mueller State Park (see previous post) about an hour west of Colorado Springs, we headed back into town to shop for Southwest Indian jewelry at the Garden of the Gods Trading Post.  This establishment, located adjacent to the southwest corner of Garden of the Gods Park but not affiliated with the park, has been a fixture since 1907.  The building is huge and the majority of store is an unspeakably tacky souvenir shop.  But an addition at the back of the store (dubbed the "art gallery") contains high quality artwork and jewelry in a refined setting.  Kali had been looking for some "boulder turquoise" jewelry for herself and for a colleague, and the trading post had the best selection we'd yet seen during our travels.  ("Boulder" turquoise is turquoise still embedded in some of its native mother rock, so jewelry made from boulder turquoise tends to have brownish or greenish mother rock shot through with dramatic streaks of sky-blue turquoise.  It's very attractive if well-designed.)  Kali bought a pair of earrings for her colleague and an earring-necklace set for herself.  Very classy.  Our salesperson, a transplant from Lansing, Michigan, was a wonderful, warm, funny and helpful person; I felt great about the whole transaction when we left. 

When we had completed our shopping, we still had a few hours left before dinnertime, so Kali asked if I wanted to tackle a hike at Garden of the Gods.  I told her that I had another idea, and we set out for North Cheyenne Canyon, another Colorado Springs city park set in a deep, narrow eponymous canyon.  At the head of the canyon are two waterfalls:  Helen Hunt Falls and Silver Cascade (or Spoon) Falls.  Helen Hunt Falls, named for a Colorado Springs writer and abolitionist who loved the canyon, is immediately adjacent to the road and has been "loved to death."  It was challenging to get the image of the falls accompanying this post because, most of the time, the falls is festooned with kids.  Helen Hunt's earthly remains originally had been buried near the falls in the canyon, but she was so beloved that her grave site was constantly overrun by people paying their respects, so her family had her remains interred elsewhere.  Poor Helen.  

The stream above Helen Hunt Falls

Silver Cascade (or Spoon) Falls is located at the top of a short (0.3-mile) but very steep trail above Helen Hunt Falls.  The drastically overused trail is in terrible condition, with water bars and wooden steps installed by the city long ago knocked out of place and the trail itself an eroded and trampled gully, but we joined the throngs slogging their way to the top.  Silver Cascade is more of a long slucieway over a huge slab of tilted rock rather than a free-falling waterfall.  It gets its nickname (Spoon Falls) because midway down the slope a rock juts up into the flow, and when there's enough water sliding down the slab this rock forces the water into a fan (the naturalist at the park called it a "rooster-tail") or a "spoon" of water.  There wasn't enough water flowing to create the "rooster-tail" when we visited, and the falls wasn't even impressive enough to photograph.  

View northeastward down North Cheyenne Canyon toward Colorado Springs and the prairie

Nevertheless, the view down North Cheyenne Canyon to the city of Colorado Springs and the plains beyond was almost worth the grueling climb to the top.

I wonder what Helen Hunt would think of North Cheyenne Canyon today.  Perhaps she'd be glad it was protected as parkland (even if it is swarming with people) rather than developed with McMansions with "million dollar views."

Garden of the Gods

Kali and I began our 2014 Colorado getaway in Colorado Springs.  The most frequently visited attraction in the city is Garden of the Gods, a large city park with impressive red sandstone formation.  The "garden," which contains the most photogenic rock formations, is actually a fairly small part of the park, which encompasses a valley in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  There are red rock exposures on both sides of the valley, but the more interestingly eroded fins and spires are on the eastern side of the valley.

The park is very heavily visited.  Kali and I arrived about ten, but but the time we left there were hundreds of people swarming over the grounds.  The trails through the most interesting formations are paved, and visitors are confined to the paved trails by attractive post-and rail-fencing.  If the trails weren't paved, the crush of visitors long ago would have eroded the walkways into unsightly, dusty ruts.

A rock climber (in the crack on the lower right)

Technical climbing is permitted on the rock formations for skilled and experienced climbers with a permit.

"Kissing Camels" 

A pair of Prairie Falcons (Falco mexicanus) had established an aerie just below the opening in the "Kissing Camels" formation (not visible in the image above).  By the time of year we visited, the chicks had fledged and joined their parents in soaring flights among the rock formations.  I did manage to get a (very distant and too dark) image of one of the adults when it perched.

Prairie Falcon adult (perched on the rocky knob dead center)

After we toured the "garden," we decided that we wanted a hike away from the crush of people, so we walked the 0.75-mile Gateway Trail to the Visitor Center.  There was almost no one on this trail, and we had an opportunity to enjoy some nice vistas and wildflowers.  We would have liked to walk more of the park's trails, but by the time time we had walked to and returned from the Visitor Center, it was early afternoon and very hot (our hottest day in Colorado), so we decided against additional exploration.

Yucca flowers

A meadow alongside the Gateway Trail

Pike's Peak, 33rd highest of Colorado's 14ers (14,000+ foot high mountains)

Another view of Pike's Peak, with the western wall of the Garden of the Gods valley