Pagosa Springs is a small, upscale touristy town, home to several hot springs, just as the name implies, including the deepest hot spring in the world. In addition to soaking in the springs, a popular pastime is tubing/rafting down the San Juan River, which runs through town.
Unfortunately for those interested in rafting, the river is running at 10% of its usual volume. There are overlooks where you can watch the tubers, but although we stayed for 3 days we never got out and walked in the downtown area, nor did we eat at any restaurants. We just enjoyed watching the river and hiked.
There are tons of hiking trails in Colorado. My biggest challenge right now is to find some that are doable for us. We can’t hike at high elevations, nor can we hike for miles on end, and the trail can’t have too much elevation gain. Tough parameters to meet in this state, and we aren’t used to limiting ourselves quite so much.
Nonetheless, we found a couple of trails that fit the bill and were still interesting. Our first hike was the meandering trail named Coyote Hill Loop. Within the first few minutes we saw and heard a young Red Tail Hawk calling for it’s mother.
The trail was 3.5 miles and just 300 ft of gain, as it meandered through meadows and woods. Very peaceful, and the weather was perfect.
Two days later we ventured out a little further. Knowing it was going to be a long day, we packed a lunch to bring with us. It was almost an hour drive to our first trail but the scenery was pretty impressive.
Our first hike was the Piedra Ice Fissures Trail.
It was a steady climb upwards through the woods, till we came upon the fissures- I was surprised at how many there were and how deep and long they are. Paul had fun exploring, and even went inside one of them.
We kept going along the trail until we reached the ridgeline, where we had spectacular views of the Piedra River Valley. We chatted with a young couple, who asked me to take their picture. I wouldn’t touch her phone but I had her give me her email address and I took pictures with my phone and sent them to her. A modern, socially distancing solution.
After we left them we made a bit of a mistake. I had downloaded the tracks of someone who hiked this trail as a loop, and that’s what we followed. Unfortunately , towards the end, it wasn’t actually a trail. We had to pick our way through the underbrush. But, we made it back ok.
From there we drove another half hour to get to the Piedra Falls Trail. Its a relatively short hike, 2 miles round trip, to a pretty neat waterfall. There’s a small pool that you can swim in, and because it was a warm day, there were lots of people doing that.
This is a very popular trail. We had to work to find a little area to have to ourselves.
The rest of our time in Pagosa was spent watching the hummingbirds and relaxing by the river. We debated going out for dinner but the restaurants were so busy, it really wasn’t worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment