New Kayak's Maiden Voyage and Moose?!?

After more than 12 miles of hiking the day before, the next was a recovery day. We slept in a little later, and headed over to another section of Colorado’s State Forest State Park. The park is made of a strip of land that stretches over 71,000 acres. To get to the northern section, we drove down Highway 14 to the North Park entrance. While moose can (supposedly) be found anywhere in the park, they are probably spotted more often in this more remote section. In fact, the state legislature voted that North Park was the moose capital of Colorado. We were heading to the moose viewpoint in the moose capital. Will we find a moose today? As we drove through North Park, we noticed that the water on the largest lake in the park looked like glass.

North Michigan Lake is the only lake where boating is allowed, and we decided that this looked like the best time to put our kayak in the water. We have worn out two Sea Eagle inflatable kayaks over our retirement years. So a month ago we ordered a Driftsun kayak.

Mark and Eli inflated it in our living room back home to make sure everything was sound. But this was the first time we had it on the water. It was the maiden voyage for the new kayak.

We headed towards the east end of the lake first, because that’s where we could get the best views of the surrounding mountains. We had paddled into more of God’s wonders!

Mark is the rudder man, always sitting at the back of the boat. So his view of the mountains in front of us always seems to have a big hat in it.

Our new inflatable boat came with seats with a comfortable back rest, but a terribly hard seat. We have been spoiled by the comfy inflatable seats from our first Sea Eagle kayak. So this was a test spin to see if our old kayak seats can work with the new boat. We sat up higher in this boat than is intended, but we were happy to report that no one fell out of it--yet.

The east end of the lake is where the creek comes into the reservoir. So we paddled up the narrow creek towards the mountains. 

We made it all the way to the bridge, where the water got too low to continue up-stream.

Denisa had to get out of the kayak there to take pictures of the pink elephant plants on the shore. One of her favorite wildflowers, they are also some of the most unusual. It might be because they only grow at high elevations in the mountains in moist locations. We like to be where these plants grow!

If you look closely, you can see that each “bloom” looks like a pink elephant head with a long pink trunk and floppy ears.

We made a complete circle of the lake, paddling 2.8 miles and taking way too many pictures on this maiden voyage.

We're suckers for a picture of fluffy white clouds reflected onto a mirror-like surface of a mountain lake.

We often spot these wildflowers--commonly called paintbrushes--as we travel across the country. In the midwest they are usually orange, and we see some version of pink paintbrushes in the mountains. But today on the lake, we found them painted a pale yellow.

The back of our pickup was jammed full with the kayak and two bikes and backpacks and hiking poles and a water jug and ice chest and lots of other things necessary for a two-month road trip. So it took us a while to get the kayak and everything else packed away. Then it was finally time to go looking for moose. The road that runs through the North Park section is a dusty dirt road. We’ll remember not to reserve any of the camping sites next to the road here because they get buffeted with dust every time a vehicle drives by. At the end of the dirt road was the northern-most section of the state park and the moose viewing deck. But all along this dirt road were great places for moose to hang out. With running water and a life-time supply of the tender willows they love, this should have been the best place to spot a moose.

We were almost to the moose-viewing deck when Denisa yelled, “Moose! Moose! Moose! Back up, back up, back up!” (Have you noticed that you have to say things three times when you are excited?) Do you see the moose?

If you look very closely in the bottom center of the picture above you will see her.

Mark threw it in reverse, and sure enough, we found our second moose in this state park. But this was the first one where we could actually stop and take pictures. And we took LOTS of pictures. While all the moose tips tell you they are out at sunrise and sunset, this female was out at 12:15.

She stared straight up at us, while we were sitting in the pickup on the ridge overlooking the creek and the willows.

Then she finally sauntered off into the forest. Only because we knew exactly where she was in the shadows, we took a picture of her with only an ear sticking out of the bushes. If we had driven by just a few minutes later, there was no way we would have seen her in the trees.

After she left, we drove 30 yards further to the moose overlook deck. We could see no other moose in the perfect moose habitat down below us.

Right across the dirt road was the Mountain View Nature Trail. A half-mile trail winds through a set of numbered posts that corresponded to the information on the brochure that Denisa was reading. One of the most interesting brochure facts was that the state park logs sections of trees in order to help prevent wild fires. This area was logged, and then replanted in 2018. So we saw that 7-year-old pine trees were about as tall as Mark (who is somewhat older).

We also found the Colorado version of bluebonnets. While Texas has peak bloom season of their bluebonnets in April, it looks like these mountain lupines were at their peak in July.

We stopped by the Moose Visitor Center for our daily chance to check emails and texts, make a phone call, and log our moose sighting. Then it was back to our Ranger Lake Campground. For the second night in a row, we went on the hike around the Ranger Lakes, hoping that a moose might be coming to water. We also watched as the storm clouds gathered, looking like we might get some hail.

Even though we walked the loop around Ranger Lakes, we had to settle for our single cow moose sighting for the day. The moose were smarter than us, as they were probably taking cover from the storms. While we did get a little wet from this evening hike, the storms left us beautiful skies. We have wandered into more of God’s wonders today!