(If you received this blog by email, you might
want to visit the actual site. The pictures work much better there.
Just click on the title, “A place on the table”)
This summer, I’ve been on a serious
return-to-fitness kick, trying to regroup from the long spell of inactivity
brought on by last fall’s assorted orthopedic woes. I’ve been really
conscientious about it, too, prioritizing walks and workouts and such rather
than letting them take the last, left-over spots (if any) in my schedule. So
today, after a nice lunch with a friend in Golden and before I got back to work, I planned to stop on my way
home for a walk, thinking I’d probably do a loop on a local trail and
call it good. But just north of Golden, I spotted the trail head for the North Mesa Trail.
I’d never hiked it before (though I'd heard tales), and the steep initial climb really beckoned. So I
traded lunch duds for walking shorts, slathered on sunscreen, and started climbing.
If you live in the Denver area and haven’t yet explored this trail (or rather,
this web of trails), check it out. It does start with a serious uphill grade,
but the almost immediate reward is great views to the west—that
wonderful Colorado sky and the shadows of the clouds on the hills. But maybe the best treat for me was the pleasure of
walking up a steep hill, settling into a steady-state pace, and discovering
that my “training” has actually worked. If legs and lungs can smile, then mine
were smiling. But I suspect my fitness regime is of far less interest than the
scenery, so I’ll skip right to the nature tales and pictures.
From the road, North Table Mesa looks dry, rocky,
and boring. But in truth, once you get up the hill and on top of the mesa, it’s
really lovely. At least this year, with our ample rain, the meadows are soft
and beautiful, and even mid-summer, the wildflowers and grasses are really nice.
Around a bend in the trail, I was surprised to see a large-ish pond (in Colorado,
we might call this a lake)—thanks, I suspect, to the abundant rain, since there are definitely no streams up there.
I heard and saw lots of birds—meadowlarks,
swallows, circling hawks, an American kestrel on a wire, a cormorant landing on
the pond, and a bumblebee big enough to count as a small bird.
And at the top of the highest promontory, the increasingly common
rusty-legged signal carrier.
This unexpected adventure was such a treat—a trail I hadn’t walked, a
beautiful day, and the sweet awareness that walking uphill is actually fun again. What a great day.
© Janis
Bohan, 2010-2015. Use of this content is welcome with attribution and a link to
the post.
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