Above Timberline

Noel, my sister Lisa, and I venture up Nellie Creek today in a rental jeep, under brooding skies. The summer rains hold off for the entire time we hike in the alpenfields at the foot of Uncompahgre. For most of the day, the tip of the peak is swathed in cloud.

The four-mile road up Nellie Creek is narrow and rough, with few places for passing an oncoming vehicle––luckily, we don't meet any! Nellie Falls is exactly as Lisa and I remember it, a lovely two-tiered waterfall glimpsed through the aspens.

Nellie Falls (Photo by Narca)

At the end of the road is the major trail for hikers to climb 14,319-foot Uncompahgre. Lisa and I climbed it as teenagers, but we have no intention of doing that today! The tundra at the foot of the peak is too inviting.

Narca, Lisa & Uncompahgre (Photo by Noel Snyder)

The hike from the trailhead to above timberline isn't difficult. We must be adjusting to elevations in the 12-13,000 foot range. A muddy spot shows us that a Lynx has preceeded us along the trail.

Lynx tracks––see the shape and the lack of claw marks? 

(Remaining photos by Narca)

Once the day warms a bit, butterflies emerge in excellent numbers, especially the dark blizzard of Theano Alpines. Along with the Theanos are several Rocky Mountain Parnassians, Purplish Coppers, Mormon and Purplish Fritillaries, a few blues, Mead's Sulphurs, Queen Alexandra's Sulphur, and Scudder's Sulphurs.

Theano Alpine

Our main goal is the endemic Uncompahgre Fritillary, but chances are poor, and we don't find any. We are probably too late for their short, 2-week flight period. The annual census failed to turn up any at all this year. Closely related to the Dingy Fritillary of more northern climes, this butterfly is only known from the base of Uncompahgre at about 13,000 feet elevation and at a similar elevation on a nearby mountain, Red Cloud, where access is far more difficult than at Uncompahgre.

Uhler's Arctic

We do find a single weak, tattered individual of a species new to us, the Uhler's Arctic. We are also here after its main flight period, and count ourselves very lucky to have seen it. (I'm very glad to have some other association with the name "Uhler" than the blood-sucking Uhler's Kissing Bug, or Western Conenose, which inhabits the southwest!)

Marmots are lounging on a rocky ledge. We join them, creating quite a stir for the inquisitive family. One adult ignores us, continuing to gather mouthfuls of grass, while the two nearly-grown youngsters perfect their techniques of sunning and staring at strangers.

Noel suns with Yellow-bellied Marmots

Nesting right at timberline are White-crowned Sparrows, Mountain Chickadees, Gray-headed Juncos, and Gray Jays. We see a couple of uncooperative rosy finches foraging on the ground and clouds of Pine Siskins amid the fluffy seeds of composites.

Paintbrush on the Uncompahgre tundra

North Henson Creek

Alan, Noel and I take the intrepid Highlander up North Henson in the San Juan Mountains today. All day it is partly cloudy and cells of rain are drenching nearby regions, although the rain never falls on us. After about four miles, the road becomes rougher, and we hike, soon finding a beautiful trail that winds along streamside meadows, in the midst of mixed conifers. We are still a good 500-1000 feet below timberline. Uncompahgre Peak peeks over the closer ridgeline.

Noel at North Henson meadow (Photos by Narca)

Berries are ripening, and I gather the tiny wild strawberries, currants and a few raspberries. Chipmunks are also feasting on strawberries.

An unidentified fritillary

Fritillaries are a difficult group, worse than Empidonax flycatchers or Old World warblers (at least they talk!). The one above has defied our efforts to identify it. Unfortunately, we never saw its underside. If anyone can shed light, please comment!

Abundant Mormon Fritillary

Chryxus Arctic

Today a favorite of mine is the Chryxus Arctic––several are perching on the ground on a slightly drier meadow-slope above the creek. They show a lot of orange, especially in flight.

Ruddy Copper, a close cousin of the Grail butterfly, Lustrous Copper

Another exquisite copper, the Purplish

A single Margined White graces the day.

A pair of Hermit Thrushes and families of Green-tailed Towhees and MacGillivray's Warblers highlight today's birds. An American Crow calling at Capitol City seems very out-of-place. (Mary Price had told us that the first crow ever found in Gothic appeared this year.)

Capitol City, for many years a ghost town, was once in contention with Denver to be the site of the capitol of the new state of Colorado. And where, we wonder, would the airport have been sited? At 13,000 feet on American Flats?

Ghost town of Capitol City

The Big Blue

Big Blue ––a watershed flowing from Uncompahgre Peak to the Gunnison River––and the nearby Alpine Plateau score high on several points. For one, they offer about the levelest hiking anywhere in Colorado's San Juan Mountains. Count us in!

Big Blue Creek flows from Uncompahgre's northeastern flank

(Photos by Narca)

First Noel and I hike along Blue Creek, its meanders lined in willows. Quickly the trail enters the Uncompahgre Wilderness, more than 100,000 acres of forest and tundra. Here in the trail's lowest reaches, a Clark's Nutcracker scrutinizes our progress. Back near the trailhead, Alan finds a family of Red-naped Sapsuckers in the aspens. 

Clark's Nutcracker

Clouds begin to build very early today, and flowers and butterflies are unaccountably scarce––we see a few fritillaries and a sulphur or two. Finally, with lunch calling insistently, it is no tragedy when the rain drives us out.

Purplish Fritillary

Soon the rain lifts as we retrace our route along the narrow 11-mile road. Near the top of the pass another less-traveled road takes off to Alpine Plateau. It's time to explore!

Meadows and conifers intersperse at Alpine Plateau.

Flowers and butterflies pick up considerably at Alpine Plateau. Among the many, Noel identifies a Boisduval's Blue (a new species for me), and we find several Rocky Mountain Parnassians. A juvenile Pine Grosbeak is a highlight.

Boisduval's Blue (large for a blue)

Rocky Mountain Parnassian, a swallowtail relative

Reluctantly retracing our route, we traverse mixed conifer-sagebrush country before returning to Highway 149 and Lake City. Exploring has paid off, again!

Copper Tales

Last week Alan and I set off for Lake City in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, on a butterfly expedition with our good friend Noel Snyder. For two years, Noel has been daydreaming of Tailed Coppers, ever since I found them along Henson Creek on an earlier trip. So, naturally, the first day found us exploring Henson Creek in search of Tailed Coppers and their flighty relatives. And coppers we found!

Two views of a Tailed Copper

Mixed in with the Tailed and Ruddy Coppers were quite a few Coral Hairstreaks, a species I had only seen previously in Missouri.

Coral Hairstreak on composite

Most were nectaring at composites, which flourished along the roadside with Colorado Columbine, wild rose, geraniums, and the familiar, wonderful Common Fireweed, its soft purple blossoms blending so beautifully with the blue-green of its foliage.

Henson Creek originates in the 13- and 14,000-foot peaks of the San Juans, and rushes down to join the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River. Here I spent many months of my childhood, in this quintessential country of the high Rocky Mountains. The main changes in the intervening decades have been the level of use for recreation––now very high indeed!––and the proliferation of second homes, where once only wild strawberries cloaked the hillsides. Returning here is bittersweet. But masses of flowers still riot in the high country, chipmunks scamper away at every bend of the road, Prairie Falcons still hunt the tundra, and Uncompahgre is still lord of the high peaks of southwestern Colorado.

Common Fireweed

(All photos by Narca)

And, yes, the old-fashioned soda fountain still operates in the town of Lake City, and though it now is a gift store rather than a general store, the ice cream remains outstanding. My grandfather being partial to ice cream, we often stopped here in the 1950s and 1960s for chocolate milk shakes after an evening of boisterous square dancing or an exhilarating day of jeeping or fly-fishing.

Pity Alan and Noel! They are about to be subjected to endless tales of mother lodes and miner's lore, of Lynx and Mountain Sheep, of our inner-tubing club––the Blue-bottomed Butt-busters––with its initiation rite of a 10-mile tubing trip in the icy waters of the Lake Fork of the Gunnison. The Lake Fork has a chance to warm up ever-so-slightly, because its waters are held in the natural lake of San Cristobal. First innner-tubers adjust to that, then when Henson Creek converges with the Lake Fork, they are slammed with another icy blast as the water temperature drops even further, to 52º! Yes, Lake City....

Tomorrow we seek our long-sought-after grail butterfly, the Lustrous Copper!