When Life Gives You Rain--Look for the Rainbow

When we drove through Glenwood Canyon four days ago, we marveled at the beauty of these tall walls that rise up on both sides of the Colorado River. So when we were looking for a hike in this area, Denisa wanted one in the canyon. Because Denisa always gets what she wants, we headed up Grizzly Creek trail in Glenwood Canyon.

The only problem with our plan to go on an 8-mile hike today was that the weather forecast called for chances of rain all day. This could be a soggy hike in the canyon. But we went on with our plan to hike, and found that Grizzly Creek cuts through a side canyon as it makes its way down to meet the Colorado River.

The first mile is a nice flat trail along the roaring creek with waterfalls and fallen trees for Mark to walk across. It was beautiful in the canyon, but we were sad that the skies were cloudy and not showing off the rich colors of the rock walls.

It wasn't long before those cloudy skies began dropping their moisture in our canyon. Sometimes we stopped under rock overhangs to get out of the light rain.

But it continued to drizzle lightly, and we decided that we were never going to get to the end of the hike if we stayed dry. So we continued on the trail that just turned steeply uphill.

It really was a beautifully majestic hike, even if our soggy pictures couldn't do it justice.

Denisa loves a good trail snack, and she was so glad to find the first wild raspberries of the summer! These tiny little berries pack a sweet punch to keep a soggy hiker motivated.

We are getting pretty experienced at what berries are our friends, and which ones are better left for decoration. For example, these certainly look like grapes, but they wouldn't taste like grapes.

God made some very beautiful berries that we found on this trail. But we didn't eat any of these.

But we recognize this as an edible berry. This is a thimbleberry, but Denisa rarely eats them because they are so seedy.

We're guessing that they are called thimbleberries because they fit so nicely on the end of a finger, just like a thimble.

While we were discussing berries, Mark and Denisa managed to climb up 1,847 feet in elevation and hiked 4 miles to the end of the trail. It was a little disappointing because we didn't get to a summit or a beautiful lake. The trail just dumped us into Grizzly Creek with those tall canyon walls still surrounding us. Oh well, considering the drizzly conditions, a summit view would have been shrouded and it was too wet to sit and enjoy a lake anyway.

Of course, Mark had to scramble up those rock walls to a little higher vantage point. But Denisa was content with the end of the trail. It is rated as "hard" because of all the elevation gain, and she was ready to head downhill.

The skies started to clear as we pointed our hiking boots back down toward the trail head. It had been drizzling for a couple hours, and we were glad to have a clearer view of the canyon walls around us on the way back to the car.

By the time we got back to the flat part of the trail, we even got a glimpse of blue in the skies above Glenwood Canyon.

Because of all the moisture in the air, we even got a rainbow by the time we got back to our campground. Even on drizzly days in a canyon we can still see God's wonders as we wander. When life gives you rain--look for the rainbow at the end.

Note: We are a couple weeks behind in posting blogs, but we thought this area needed an update. On August 10, a fire started in Grizzly Canyon, so all this beauty we saw on our hike is charred now. The fire has expanded to cause the closure of Interstate 70 for three days so far. Another reason this major travel artery is closed is because the rocks are falling from the canyon walls (because the plants that hold them in place are burned) onto the interstate. Called the Grizzly Creek fire, it has caused smoky conditions and traffic problems as people look for alternate ways to travel east/west across Colorado since the interstate is closed. Earlier we posted about Cottonwood and Independence passes. Both of these scenic passes have been closed because of the traffic snarls caused from 18-wheelers and too-many travelers trying to use them as detours. Wow!