Idiots at the BV Gold Rush Days

We're way behind in getting travel posts published because we were having way too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

August 12 and 13, 2023

We've been lucky to have a different festival every weekend since we started our one-month stay at Buena Vista (BV), Colorado. The first weekend we went to the Chaffee County Fair near Salida. The second weekend we went to Leadville's Boom Days. This third weekend we planned to spend both Saturday and Sunday in Buena Vista at their 75th annual Gold Rush Days. Saturday started out with rain showers all morning, so we didn't actually arrive until after 2:00.

We got there just in time to see how the toilet seat race worked (or didn't work). Four contestants were lined up at the start line--sitting on their toilet seats with two precarious little wheels underneath. Besides the problem of staying balanced on the little wheels, their only mode of propulsion were two toilet plungers. The kids struggled, and the only one that made it out of the starting blocks was one adult.

We had blue skies for a while. We must be summer sissies, because it felt hot in the sun with temperatures that never got out of the 70s. We stayed around for the live music and a little dancing on Main Street on Saturday. But the most popular part of Gold Rush Days was the Sunday burro race. We got there thirty minutes before the race started because we were now experienced burro racing fans. After watching the burro races in Leadville last week, it was fun that we recognized some of the racers. The streets of Buena Vista were lined with spectators anticipating the beginning of the race.

One of the fan favorites was the 75-year-old with the long white beard and his 29-year-old donkey. When Denisa took the picture of him and his donkey, he told another female that his donkey did like all the attention from the women--and so did he.

With ten minutes before race time, the burros and their runners began lining up. The emcee in charge encouraged the fast asses to make their way to the front of the pack, while the slow asses should head to the back of the line. We couldn't help but notice that a couple racers were in front of the line. Were they pacers? Were they not running the race?

No, their donkeys just don't play well with others and were a little too high strung to wait calmly in a crowd. They had to get behind the starting line right before the race started, and their handlers had a hard time hanging on to them for those few final moments before the race started.

Then the gun sounded, and they were off like a herd of miners heading out to find gold in them thar hills.

While racers could choose between a 15- and 22-mile race last week, all of the burros were going 13 miles at BV. It doesn't take long for 80 burro teams to get started. The old-timer was the last one down Main Street. Those 80 burros sure left a mess down the street.

We noticed last week in Leadville that a couple volunteers took a wagon and shovel and cleared the donkey poop off the street after the beginning of the race. But BV has a different method of cleaning the poop. They trick people into volunteering to clean up by making it into a competition. They pay $50 to the team with the most donkey poop in their trash bag. What idiots would fall for that scheme?

Meet the idiots! We figured that if we won we would make some cash, and if we lost we did our community service project of cleaning up the streets. So how does this race work? We wanted to know too. They provided the tools for picking up the poop, but some were better than others. The best tools were the furthest away from the start line, while the worst tools were the closest. One member of each of the teams lined up at the starting block. We happened to notice that we were probably twice as old as the rest of teams.

The gun sounded to start the race. The teams were in a sprint to choose the best clean-up tools. Mark chose the broom and the up-right-pivoting-dust-pan. He recognized that it wasn't as good as the snow shovel, but he didn't have to run as far to get it. 

The runners had to run all the way back to the starting line where their other team mates were waiting with the trash sack. Then teams worked to put as much donkey poop into their sack as possible before the time was up. The best area was obviously right behind the starting line where 80 donkeys had waited impatiently for the race to begin. We started there, but so did the snow shovel. There were teams with a spade shovel, iron manure fork, rake, garden shovel, flexible scoop fork . . . Mark was really good at running our implements, and Denisa was all right at holding the trash bag open. We had a fan in the crowd, and she took pictures of the idiots' technique.

Mark even stopped scooping poop long enough to smile, and she told us that she would meet us after the race to give us the pictures. How nice! You can never have too many pictures picking up poop!

After the easy poop piles at the starting line, the idiots spread out. Those donkeys pooped all the way down Main Street! Because most of the afternoon's events were along this busy street, it was important to pick up all the poop so people wouldn't be stepping in it. These teams were thorough, as the guy in charge kept encouraging us with phrases like "Every ounce counts!" We sprinted back to the start line just as time was up, proud that our bag felt pretty darn heavy. All the idiots lined up for the big weigh-in. They had an electronic scale ready to determine the winner. But even though they checked it right before, and restarted it twice, it refused to work.

So they ended up using three volunteers from the crowd to pick up each bag and determine which was the heaviest. We would have preferred to have seen the weight, but it was determined that ours was the third heaviest. A team from Colorado Springs took home the $50, and we'll just have to feel good about the exercise we got and the community service project that these two idiots participated in.

After a thorough hand washing, we went back downtown to the festival. We had already checked out all the vendors and information booths the day before. So we found some shade and waited beside that newly cleaned street for the return of the burros. For those not wanting to make the commitment to lead a burro 13 miles, they had block-long races going on.

They also had an ice cold dunk tank where the town's coaches and principals were taking turns getting dunked by their students. Food trucks were parked along the main route, but some of the local restaurants were closed. The Deerhammer cafe posted a sign that it wasn't serving food because apparently their workers would rather visit the festival instead of work today.

People started lining up along Main Street to stake a spot to watch the winners of the burro race. The 13-mile course ends back in town, after circling up and down rocky steep trails at high altitude. So we were amazed when the first two race teams showed up at the end of Main Street not far off a regular half-marathon pace. It was two local runners that have ran these races before, and they were running neck and neck.

It was almost a photo finish, but Yukon and Bob crossed the finish line a burro's nose ahead. We headed to the winner's circle to get pictures with half of the winning team. Bob was sitting in a chair resting, while Yukon was happy to take pictures. We found out that Yukon was a seasoned racers, and his owners have loaned him to good runners in different states. But today his owner ran with Yukon, and they won together!

The third place team came in, and she was giving her burro a big hug and kiss. While this was the skittish burro at the beginning of the race that almost knocked over the judges' table, he was calm at the end of the race.

That was a well-earned kiss because this team just won the burro race trifecta, with the fastest combined time in the three area burro races held the last three weekends. They raced well in Fairplay, Leadville, and now Buena Vista! Congratulations that a woman won the trifecta this year! There was rumor that she would be in the burro racing hall of fame soon. (We found that there is a little drama in the trifecta race this year. While a man from Leadville won at Fairplay and Leadville, he decided not to even show up at Buena Vista for some reason.)

Fourth and fifth place runners were also very close. But the young man with the little burro won by a nose for the $300 fourth place prize money. We know how much he got because he opened his prize envelope while we were standing beside him and his grandfather. 

We love meeting the locals and learning their stories. This young man was 15, and we saw him come in second place at the short race in Leadville last week. He barely lost, but only because he let his best friend race with this little burro and he used another burro last week. (We have a picture of that photo finish from last week too). He rewarded his burro with a carrot at the end of today's race.

This 15-year-old is part of a burro-racing family. His parents are both veterinarians, and they have four racing burros. His father came in 6th, and he confessed that he only did that well because he was trying to keep in sight of his son.

His mother and sister were also racing. We had to stick around to watch the mother cross the finish line because they were having a surprise 50th birthday party for her, complete with cupcakes for the crowd.

 Relatives brought signs with interesting 50th birthday wishes.

The birthday girl had quite a reception as she crossed the finish line.

We heard all about this interesting family from talking to the grandfather, who was now Mark's close friend. We might be idiots, but we were friendly idiots.

We watched around 40 of the 80 burro teams cross the finish line. Many times they came in packs, which seemed to inspire them to keep moving.

When running into a town full of cheering admirers, a solitary burro can freeze up and refuse to move. But most of these burros were running towards the finish line and the promised carrots at the end of the race. The temperature was all the way up in the 70's by this time, and we headed home after a second day at Gold Rush Days. We were just a little concerned about who was going to clean up all the donkey poop left from all those animals still finishing up the race. Maybe they can find some new idiots to clean it up.

That was a good idea!

We're way behind in getting travel posts published because we were having way too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

August 11, 2023

We were up early this morning, with a face-time call from our five-year-old granddaughter. This was her first day of kindergarten and she was eating breakfast and wanted to share her exciting morning with us. We thought that was a good idea! We were blessed to get an important face-time call even when we were a couple states away from our children and grandchildren!

We had planned to play pickleball this morning. Buena Vista has six very nice new courts, and they have organized games on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. But it was cold and a little windy at 8:00 for outdoor pickleball, so we opted for Plan B. That was a good idea! Several days ago we had started the Narrow Gauge Trail, but we recognized that this would be a good bike trail. So we decided to save it for another day. Today is the "another day." The only problem with this trail was that it gained around 500 feet in elevation when leaving from the east trailhead. So we hatched a plan. We drove to the west trailhead and left our bikes there. Mark chained them to a tree just above the highway.

Then we drove the pickup to the east trailhead and we started the hike.

This was the old railbed of the Denver-Southpark Railroad. This train moved mining supplies and people up this route from 1880 through 1926. The rail bed was cut onto a shelf of Mount Antero and started at an elevation of 8,560 feet. 

We had some amazing mountain scenery as we looked down over the valley cut by Chalk Creek. While we were on the side of Mount Antero, we could look to the north to see Mount Princeton.

The steady elevation gain is easy to hike up, but Denisa was certainly glad that she didn't have to pedal her bike up that incline.

About one mile into the hike, we came to the first biking obstacle. While it was easy to hike over this rocky terrain, we knew we would have to carry our bikes over that section on the way back.

While we were hiking on the side of a 14,275-foot mountain, we had better views of 14,196-foot Mount Princeton. That's Chalk Lake below us. If you look very closely, you can see Agnes Vaille Falls pouring out of Mount Princeton. That's one of the hikes we took last week.

We started with blue skies, but the white puffy clouds were forming interesting shapes on our horizon.

The Narrow Gauge hike was a 4.2-mile out-and-back trail. So we were hiking the 2.1 miles out. We knew we were getting close to the two-mile mark when we began hearing the roar of the cascades along Chalk Creek. We could peek through the trees to see the water cascading down the rocks below us.

We finished our hike to the west end of the trail, and it was time to unlock our bikes and carry them to the trail head.

The beginning was a little rough, and we had to roll the bikes over some of the big rocks on this end of the trail. Then it was time to start the easy bike ride back to the pickup. We could see the highway below us as we started the downhill ride.

The good news was that it was down-hill all the way back on our bikes! While the railroad bed was a little narrow at times, we always had enough width to ride our bikes through.

It was good to be able to preview the trail while we were hiking up. We knew that we would have five different bridges and rocky places that we had to get off our bikes and roll them beside us.

Of course, we knew about the biggest rock obstacle at the half-way point where we had to carry our bikes.

Wait! Wasn't that Denisa's bike that Mark was carrying? After carrying his own, he went back to carry Denisa's bike as well. What a gentleman!

While the biking took less time than hiking, we had more stops on that part of the trail. Several people recognized us as the hikers they had seen walking in the opposite direction. So we had to explain our tactic of dropping off the bikes first so that we could roll back. They liked our idea!

So did we! We never had to pedal the entire two miles back to the pickup. While the trail was a little rocky at times, and a little sandy at other times, even non-technical bikers like us had no problem. The trail was wide enough for ATVs, but it had barricades on both ends that prevented any motorized vehicles from starting the trail. So hikers and bikers can enjoy the trail in peace.

After we loaded up our bikes, we headed back towards Buena Vista. With yesterday's long day, we planned a half-day of activities for today. But we didn't realize how interesting the next stop would be. The Gem and Mineral show started yesterday, and we could see vendor tents in four rows spread for almost a quarter-mile at the fairgrounds. Minerals and gems of every shape and color and size were for sale. Since we live in a motor home, we couldn't buy too many heavy rocks. But we were certainly tempted.

Yesterday's windy weather wreaked havoc on this outdoor show. Mark talked to several vendors, and found out that 22 different tents were destroyed by the wind the day before. Some of those people opted to head home, while a few stayed without the shade of a tent above their tables for the rest of the show. By the looks of the clouds, it looked like we were about to get another storm. But stopping at the gem and mineral show was certainly a good idea!

We had a couple more shopping stops in town, so we didn't get back to the motor home until after 4:00. We fixed dinner and got a report that our granddaughter had a good first day of school. As she recounted the day's activities her best quote was "My first day was a big record!" It felt like we all had a big record day filled with lots of good ideas!

Long and Beautiful and Exhausting Cottonwood Pass Day

We're way behind in getting travel posts published because we were having way too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

August 10, 2023 

Cottonwood Pass is one of the reasons we decided to come back and spend a month in this area. It's located on highway 306, which starts in Buena Vista and heads west into the mountains and the pass. We had already traveled this direction when we kayaked at Cottonwood Lake a couple weeks ago. But this day we planned to drive deeper into the mountains for a long "Cottonwood Pass Day." Our first destination was a confusing trail head that had only a few parking spots. We felt a little lost when we parked along Highway 306 for a hike to Lost Lake. Some of the reviews for this hike said that this informal trail was closed. The trail headed straight up into the mountains, and we were happy to see that it was open.

The first hikers we met coming the other direction told us that there was a moose close to the trail in just 150 yards. We sped up our hiking speed, as we were intent on seeing that moose. You should know that we have been bam-moosled more than once! That's the term that we invented this summer when we were told about moose ahead on the trail. It rhymes with bamboozled--which means tricked or mislead. So when you are told about moose that are ahead on the trail but you never see it for yourself--you've been bam-moosled. Now we have mixed emotions about getting wildlife sighting advice on a trail. It always seemed that those animals were gone by the time we got to the described sighting spot. Again, we hurriedly hiked the 150 yards and searched and found nothing but beautiful mountains. Some would say that's not such a bad sighting.

Much further down the trail, we met another hiker that described the moose she had just stopped to watch--five more minutes down the trail. With her new descriptions, we hurried along to this clearing. Do you see it?

We wouldn't have seen it either without that last hiker's descriptions. Look again in the lower left hand corner in the picture above. We hiked closer and then zoomed in for a better picture. We could see that the moose had moved away from the trail, and was now closer to the trees.

We weren't bam-moosled this time after all! And we have to take back our bad feelings about getting wildlife sighting advice. We would have never seen this big guy without knowing to carefully scan this area. 

We found out that he had been right beside the trail thirty minutes earlier, scaring the hikers into taking a very wide detour to stay away from him. Now we were wishing he was closer to the trail, but we stayed and watched him from a distance for a while.

As we continued, we found a spur trail that led to this viewpoint of the 14,000+ feet peaks that surrounded us. A sign indicated that on a clear day we could see Pikes Peak from here. The weather today was a little cloudy and hazy, but we could still see the famous peak in the distance. The sign also told the story of the day in 1893 when Katharine Lee Bates went up Pikes Peak and penned a poem that she originally titled "Pikes Peak." Perhaps you've heard of this poem that goes: "O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!" Did you start humming as you read those lyrics? It was set to music, and became the song "America the Beautiful." See what things we learn on our hikes?

It was a 1.4-mile hike to get to our destination. We had found Lost Lake!

We hiked to this lake several years ago, and we had quickly snapped a picture at the water's edge with angry gray clouds all around us. We got soaked in the pouring rain and we waded through the mud to get back to the car that day. You can read about it in the blog titled "Cottonwood Pass on the Fourth of July" in 2020. With that experience in our past, you can be sure that our rain coats were in the backpack today. We were blessed with bluer skies this time, and we had the time to enjoy Lost Lake. We hiked around the end of the lake to get more views of the island in the middle, and the mountains that circle the lake.

We hiked until the trail became a rock scramble. You can barely see Mark among the big boulders on the left side of the picture below. That meant it was time to turn around.

As we looked to the top of the mountain, we could see hikers playing in the snow above us. They were on the Continental Divide Trail that can be accessed at the Cottonwood Pass summit. We toyed with the idea of hiking up the very steep trail to join to the Continental Divide Trail--but then we came to our senses.

We had one more look at Lost Lake, with its water that was so clear we could see every rock on the bottom.

Denisa also paused long enough to take pictures of the flowers along the edge of the lake. The green stems are turning red at the top, indicating that their season is about to come to an end.

We headed back down the trail, but Mark had noticed that there was an alternate hiking trail for the return trip. Sometimes his alternate paths can be tricky, but we decided to try it anyway. It turned out to be a very well-maintained path through the forest, with brand new interpretive signs along the way.

We discovered that the forest service was working on a brand new trail head with new parking for the Lost Lake trail. There was still a gate over the new parking area and they were working on a new sign at the entrance. But Mark had accidentally found the new trail and access to Lost Lake. Hikers will no longer have to park in questionable spots along the busy highway. Doing it our way meant we still had a half-mile walk up the steep highway to get back to our pickup. But we successfully made it into a 4.1-mile loop hike (with only 522 feet elevation gain). We love a good loop hike!

It was just another couple driving miles up the road to get to the Cottonwood Pass day use area. We were over 12,000 feet in elevation, so we both needed our jackets in August for a hike up to the viewpoint to see the mountains to our north.

From here we could also look down to Taylor Reservoir to our west. On our last trip we drove the 16 miles down the Cottonwood Highway to see it up close. But the weather didn't look good to put the kayak on the lake, so we decided this distant view of the reservoir was good enough for us.

The butterflies were enjoying the wildflowers still blooming at this high elevation. This little orange and black butterfly was so enamored by the blooms that he let Denisa take a picture.

Our next stop was the top of Cottonwood Pass. At 12,126 feet, this is where the Continental Divide intersects these mountains. According to the sign, it's also the dividing point between the San Isabel National Forest and the Gunnison National Forest.

From this parking lot we started a steep trail up to the summit viewpoint. It was a majestic view in all directions from the top.

A panorama picture from the summit shows the mountains around us, as well as glimpses of the winding Cottonwood highway that brought us here.

While at the viewpoint, we heard the familiar squeak of a pika. These cute little mammals are related to rabbits, but smaller and with tiny ears. We often hear them squeak, but we seldom see them. It's almost impossible to get a picture because they quickly duck into one of their burrows. Today, however, this little pika decided to pose for a moment long enough to snap a picture.

Enough people hike to the top so that we could trade picture-taking duties with another couple.

After that short summit trail, most hikers return downhill to the parking lot. But we can see another summit view if we head further uphill. This is part of the Colorado Trail (CT) and the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) that march across this state. 

Of course we headed upwards along the zig-zagging switchbacks to even higher views--and some snow.

It was windy at the top, and a u-shaped pile of rocks provided some relief from that wind.

CT and CDT hikers could take refuge here from the wind on the ridge. This was part of a seven-mile ridge section that doesn't get much protection from the elements. We talked to several through-hikers on the 567-mile Colorado Trail. They were trying to decide whether to continue the seven miles on the ridge today, or camp lower and hike that ridge stretch tomorrow. Our view while sitting in that little wind-break of stones proved that we had wandered into more of God's wonders.

We continued on the ridge, hoping to see Lost Lake from the top in a mile or two. But we were side-tracked by a couple wildlife sightings. We heard the cluck of an adult ptarmigan and spotted her on the side of the trail.

In the winter, ptarmigans will have pure white feathers that help them to blend into the snow that will cover this high elevation home. But in the summer they have mottled feathers that help them to blend with their habitat. That makes them hard to spot among the grass and rocks. At the time we didn't realize that we actually captured two ptarmigans in this picture.

We saw more movement around us, and realized that the mother was calling to her clutch of ptarmigan chicks. Do you see two of them in the picture below?

They were easier to spot and photograph when they ran down the trail right in front of us. These birds nest on the ground and prefer to walk rather than fly. We would spot five adolescent chicks running towards the mother's clucking call. 

A little later down the trail we spotted another family of ptarmigans. This time two of the chicks were sitting very still among the overhanging rocks near the trail. That might have something to do with the raptor that we saw circling in the blue mountain sky a few minutes before.

Ptarmigans seem to be social birds that don't scurry away from hikers. They are the only birds in Colorado that live year-round in this high-elevation alpine region, and we certainly enjoyed spending some time with them high above tree line.

Our next tiny wildlife encounter in the alpine was a couple more pikas. 

In over eight years of full-time travel, we've only successfully taken a couple pika pictures. So we felt very blessed to take a couple more today.

While we enjoyed our time on the ridge above tree line, we couldn't help but notice that the clouds were thickening and turning an ominous gray. With no protection from storms at this elevation, we had to turn back before we saw Lost Lake from the top. 

It was a zig-zagging switchback trail back down the Colorado/Continental Divide Trail to the pickup. We got some sprinkles of rain, but we didn't get wet.

That was our last stop on the Cottonwood Highway. We had a great August day with temperatures that never got out of the 60s. We were blessed to get to spend the summer months in the mountains! Our long day on Cottonwood Pass meant that we barely made it back to Buena Vista in time for the 6:00 concert in the park. 

The bluegrass group handed out spoons and kazoos to the crowd, and we all felt like we were part of  the band. A good time was had by all!

We left the motor home early this morning, and we didn't return until 8:30 in the evening. It was a long and beautiful and exhausting day along Cottonwood Pass.