Gold Hill and Bald Mountain

Ellen and I had some time on our own today while Betsey and Rob went back to Anschutz for an appointment with Dr. Denise Damek, Betsey's neuro-oncologist. They are not back from that yet. So I'll wait on news about Betsey until we hear that report.

Meanwhile, today was a gorgeous spring day, and after R&B left, we went to Gold Hill, which is a little town about 5-6 miles farther up Sunshine Canyon Drive from R&B's house, at an elevation of about 8250 feet. It is an old mining town that has hung on and survived, inhabited, I suspect, by a contingent of aging hippies, plus others. There is a school, so there must be some younger families. The houses are a mix of pretty rustic shacks to more splendid mansions, and much in between, but the impression is largely rustic.

Street scene in Gold Hill

The Gold Hill Store goes back a ways. The owner says it sat empty and unused from about 1940 to 1970, then someone fixed it up and it's been in operation since. We had a nice lunch there.  He was getting a fair amount of biker business - a lot of bikers climb up out of Boulder - amazing!

The Gold Hill Store

Old cabinets in the store

Lunch time

After lunch we took a walk and went by the Gold Hill Cemetery - also very rustic and sort of haphazard, like the town.

Entrance to Gold Hill Cemetery

We went in and looked at graves - one of our favorite occupations - and then for a long time we sat on a memorial bench and watched a remarkable process. A creature - a flying ant? - was digging a hole, and we watched it burrow in, back out with a load of dirt, deposit it on the ground outside the hole, and then go back in. That went on for some time. It would sort of fly around and come back and start digging again. Then it flew away and stayed away for some time. But then we saw it coming back, crawling over the ground, and it was carrying something bigger than itself underneath its belly. It look like a caterpillar. It proceeded to take it into the hole and bury it! It finally crawled out of the hole - head first this time - and then it proceeded to carry dirt to fill in the hole, sometimes scratching backwards with its legs like a dog or cat, and then it went to great effort to disguise the location of the hole by dragging bits of sticks and leaf litter and little stones and arranging them all over where the hole was so that when it was done, you could not see that any digging had gone on there at all! Really, quite remarkable!  Here's the creature, resting from her labors:

The object of our fascination

View inside the cemetery

Monument for two infants

Eventually we left the cemetery, but enjoyed our time there very much, walked back into town, and then drove back down Sunshine Canyon, stopped at the house for a pit stop, and then drove a bit more then a mile further down the canyon to Bald Mountain Scenic Area.

Bald Mountain Scenic Area

This is a short trail Rob told us about. There was a loop trail that spiralled around the mountain and led up to the summit where you were treated to a 360 degree view, including the white-capped continental divide.

Continental Divide from Bald Mountain

View of summit of Bald Mountain

View of Boulder from the summit - red-tiled UofC buildings clearly visible

This walk had the added bonus of an abundance of alpine wild flowers! So that was a really nice hike. Ellen, especially, is always thrilled to discover wild flowers.

Prickly Pear Cactus blossom

Sand lilies

Pasque flower

Remnants of fire of 2010 - Mullein in foreground

Phlox

Betsey and Rob just got back. Betsey is exhausted, so she went down for a nap. Rob said there wasn't a lot of news to report. Everything is just going to take time and require a great deal of patience. Betsey will have a healing energy session with Lyria Pascal tomorrow and that will be good. But she also starts five days of chemo tonight. Those five pills cost over $2300!! Imagine it!