Kayaking Big Meadow

On the last day of our week-long stay at South Fork, Colorado, we headed 15 miles west of town into the Big Meadows. We are glad to see a sprinkling of yellow aspen on the mountain-side. We're leaving this area without seeing the golden fall colors, so at least we got a teaser of autumn. Remember that we're always a week or two late in getting blogs published, so by the time you read this post the mountains should be ablaze with golden aspen leaves.

After driving by several mountain lakes yesterday and not getting the kayak out because it was too windy, we were determined to get the boat wet today. We were glad that Big Meadow Reservoir cooperated with our plans.

The ducks were also enjoying the nice weather at the lake. We caught a picture of these two ducks, 

but we noticed that most of the lake residents seem to be mergansers. The bird books describes the males as having "a warm reddish head with a ragged crest." Denisa describes them was having "a wild hairdo that looks like an auburn mullet."

When these birds are out of the water, we can see their bright orange webbed feet.

But when they are in the water, they like to swim in long lines of ten to twenty birds that make a wave line across the lake.

It was a great morning for bird watching, but we were also looking for land animals as we paddled to the far end of the glassy lake.

We like to follow the grassy inlets to see how far we can get down these channels. But when the bottom of the kayak rubbed on the mud, we had to get out of the boat to explore further.

We were following beaver trails. We could see where the grass was flattened as they made their way from one channel to another across this green meadow.

They've been as busy as beavers, making dams across all the inlets that we found.

From sitting in the kayak on the lake, we couldn't see what was beyond the bridge. Denisa convinced Mark that we shouldn't kayak under the bridge. Later we saw that it would have been a rough downhill if we would have tried to continue past the bridge.

We had a nice time paddling around Big Meadow Reservoir. But we had seen on the map that there was another lake just three miles further up the mountain. So we put the inflated boat on top of the car to make that bumpy drive up another gravel road.

A forest fire has left this higher area surrounded by charred trunks. But since we went to the trouble of leaving the boat inflated, we decided to put it on the water at Shaw Lake too.

We were the only ones at this lesser-known and harder-to-get-to lake. The animals here aren't accustomed to visitors, so the ducks didn't even move when we paddled by them.

Likewise, this deer walked out of the forest and continued toward the water where we were paddling.

The water is low enough that rocks are sticking out of the water in the middle of the lake. Mark dropped Denisa off on this temporary island and tried some single paddling in the kayak.

After starting our week-long stay at South Fork in the rain, we finished with beautiful blue skies and a touch of fall in the air. It's been a great time of wandering more of God's wonders, but now it's time to head on down the road tomorrow.