After a day of hunting for Indian ruins in the canyons of Mesa Verde National Park, we decided that we needed a day of exercise and nature. We are out of the mountains here in Dolores, Colorado, but AllTrails led us to the best trail around town. This is the Boggy Draw, a tangle of trails that loop through tall pines . . .
and across grassy meadows. This is a hiking/biking trail, but at 8.4 miles in length, the reviews on the hiking app said that it was better for biking.
If you know anything about Denisa's bike-riding abilities, you know that she should probably hang up her mountain biking pedals. She's not good at going uphill because it's too hard,
and she's not good at going downhill when it's too steep and rocky--and especially when there's a fence to crash into. She's at the top of the picture below, definitely walking her bike down that nasty slope.
But all the parts of the trail between the worst up- and down-hills were delightful, as we pedaled our way through the trees and slick rock. This is Denisa's first real mountain bike trail since she rode off a ten-foot-high bridge a couple years ago. So even though it was definitely a trail for beginners, it was a nice ride for her to get back in the saddle again. We would say the bike ride was a complete success if she hadn't gotten a piece of glass stuck in her front tire towards the end of the trail. It resulted in an instant flat, so she had to walk her bike home for the last half-mile.
After that bicycle ride, we headed to Dolores's nearest lake for some kayaking. We went to the boat ramp on the east side of the lake because the one closest to our campground on the west side was no longer in the water. In fact, even this east ramp was closed to motor boats because of the low lake levels. But we carried our kayak down the very long and steep ramp to launch.
Once launched, we enjoyed the views of the white rock shores that surround much of the central part of Lake McPhee.
Those rock edges are fun to kayak into . . .
and back out.
Sometimes over-hanging rock cliffs also provided shade on this sunny afternoon. We pulled the kayak in close to the rocks to get a break from the intense afternoon sun here in Dolores. We are down to an elevation of only 7,000 feet here, and we are feeling the summer heat this afternoon.
We like a lake with some side channels that allow kayakers to get away from the wind and speed boats. This channel was almost two miles long, and the water was glassy here. We could also see that this lake was down from its full point last summer. Water is drawn out of here for irrigating the valley, and the shore showed a new dirt stripe for each reduction.
Our only wildlife picture of the day was this great blue heron, hunting from that striped shore line.
After a nice paddle, we headed back up our channel to the big white rocks closer to our boat ramp. It's hard to tell in the picture, but these rocks stand 20-30 feet above the water, and look like they would be great diving rocks if we knew how deep the water was underneath. We got the boat out of the water, and made the long hike up the closed steep boat ramp carrying our kayak. We biked at Boggy Draw, we kayaked at Lake McPhee, and got in a little hiking at both places. That's an exercise trifecta!
To fuel all that exercise, we then headed back to the town of Dolores to pick up our chicken pot pie. A camping neighbor told us about the tiny grocery store's reputation for tasty pies that are baked on Tuesday and Friday. We were also warned to order ahead of time, because they sell as fast as they come out of the oven. We picked up our reserved pie, and finished baking it at 350 degrees in our motor home oven. A full-size chicken pot pie, this could easily feed 4 or 5 people, and we can tell you that it was delicious!
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