Haflin Creek

Distance: 7.6 miles
Altitude Gained: 2880 ft
High Point:  9500 ft.

felled forest empire

a post-utopic graveyard

young green brings new hope

FIRST AND FOREMOST:

We saw a BEAR!! We startled him suddenly, and he took off up the mountain too fast to get a photo. The most magnificent fauna sighting of our lives without a doubt: the Black Bear (Ursus Americanus). The one we saw was actually brown. We think it was probably a female because it didn't seem too big, but we aren't positive.

We had a bit of foreshadowing in the form of slash marks in this fallen aspen.  We discussed that most likely only a bear could make marks like these.  Shortly thereafter, there he (or she) was. 

Looked like this guy:

(http://dnr.state.co.us/ImageDBImages/21351Vignette.jpg)

Haflin Creek is our best hike so far of the season.  It is a perfect half-day hike when the weather is moderate:  good elevation gain, good work-out, incredible views from the top of Missionary Ridge.  Later in the summer, it is an overheater due to the amount of exposure to sun since the forest burned eight years ago.  It is a highly interesting hike because of the fire damage and the regeneration of flora since.  The fourth edition of Hiking Trails calls it "a great early summer warm-up for Fourteeners."  We find this to be true: you climb, climb, climb, never painstakingly, but those who are not in shape will not love this hike.

For us, it was emotional at times.  We were silenced as we ascended to the level of the former ponderosa kingdom.  We mourned the death of thousands of our great friends, many of their burnt bodies still standing, a testament to their once majestic stronghold in these parts.  We were overcome with nostalgia really.  In the summer of 2002, we lived on County Road 203 directly across the valley.  We first saw the fire within an hour of its birth.  For weeks we did little else than watch it burn slowly down the ridge, devastating the old forest.  We called her Mish (a shortening of what came to be the official name:  the Missionary Ridge Fire of 2002), and she was a very real presence in our lives:  terrible, glorious, unforgettable.

On this trail, the ghostly presence of the former forest is ever-present.  This used to be a largely shady trail back in the day, an enchanted forest for sure.  Now, as the warning sign at the trailhead reminds us, the corpses of felled giants are everywhere, traversing the trail and falling still all the time.  It is quite a technical trail, actually.  You often have to climb over their big bodies to continue along.

Nevertheless, the cycle of life wages on.   There is as much new life nowadays as there is evidence of death.  Young aspen groves abound, surviving like the fittest species they are. 

And oh, the flowers!!!! The flowers, the flowers!!!! This hike is a tour of wildflowers.  Sometimes post-burn areas will yield tremendous blooms, even larger than before the fire, and this would seem to be the case on Missionary Ridge but we can't be sure.  Either way, we were surrounded by countless wildflowers including mountain balm (Ceanothus velutinus), hundreds of lupine (Lupinus argenteus) and even some red columbine (Aquilegia elegantula)!  It doesn't get much better than this...

If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. ~Terri Guillemets

If you haven't been on top of Missionary Ridge lately, we recommend you get up Haflin Creek.  It's a good one.