The Flattops; good backpacking and great fishing

   Objective: Spend four days in the Flattop Wilderness of Colorado, and to pack out every pound of food that we packed in.

The skillet is cast iron and about 12" in diameter.
Cast iron works best for fish because it evenly
 distributes the heat.

   In the second week of August, in the year 2010, we did almost that. From Boulder, my friend Henry and I drove to Steamboat, picked up Aaron, and headed to the east side of the wilderness boundary. Parking just below Stillwater reservoir at just about noon, we hiked to the north side of the reservoir and dipped our lines. After about 5 casts, I had caught a fish, a decent 13" brown trout. Henry soon followed with his fish, as I continued to work my way down the shore. As I reeled in another, and Aaron had yet to catch one, he gave up his pole and went to get the stove and cast iron pan out, and begin to gut the three we had already caught. We were all hungry, and had been imaging eating nothing but trout for the next 3 days, which appeared to be a very real possibility. By the time the first two had cooked, we got another two small ones, bringing our total to five fish for lunch. Only about an hour into the trip, and we all had our bellies full of fresh-caught and fresh-cooked (out of the water and into the pan) trout.

Looking back down on Stillwater Reservoir from the top of the Flattops

                        
                                                             


                                              
                                                                



                                       The three of us bushwhacked right into the thick of it coming across mushrooms (including edible boletus, which we picked), small ponds and cricks and tall grass. We found a small lake to make camp at, and fished with great success for dinner. The forest there, despite it making a comeback from a disease which resulted in a large fire in the 1940's, is very healthy consists mostly of trees of only one age. The dead trees from long ago can make going tough though, as they all blow down in different directions, and were quite large trees. There are no trees above the top, as the basalt that makes up these tops is hard, and the winds must be ferocious at times. We hiked across the flattops to a lake situated on a shelf of basalt, right below the top lip. It was called "Suprise Lake". Right before our descent into the suprise, we saw some sheepherders, whose dogs barked ferociously at us. It made me realize that I had left my ice axe (more for protection and utility than ice) about a mile and a half back. Oops. We continued for camp, and a large white sheephearder's dog kept following us.

Our view from the small lake the night before we hiked to "Suprise Lake". It was about 1800 vertical feet, and steep!

 











                  










                        It was really nice, actually, this dog. It wasn't one of those that had been barking at us, and it just kept wandering around, keeping an eye on us. Once we had a fire, it came by and sat with us and allowed us to pet it. Henry decided to call her "Marisol". She left, though, dinnertime we had supposed. We fished the lake after setting up camp, and of caught dinner within the last hour of sunlight. It turned out the dog slept right by where we were camping, and it was a good thing. That night we all woke up when we heard crashing and the breaking of branches. The smell of our dinner had brought in a bear, just like we had expected. Our bear bag was tied between two spruces, about 25 feet up, but our clothes, which smelled like delicious fish and in our tents, that is what scared us. Right after we made sure we were all awake and had in fact heard a bear, Marisol started barking close by. She barked for about an hour, making sure that bear didn't come back.

   On the second day, it rained. The morning was cloudy and before noon it was pouring. We napped and tried to keep the fire going, but there wasn't much we could do but stay under the tarp and stay warm. The tarp, by the way, was mine and had my sleeping bag and pad in it, but neither Aaron's or Henry's tents were large enough for all three of us, and so my tarp was the place to be. This whole hanging out under my tarp thing was really a drying off from tending to the fire kind of thing, and my bag and gear all got soaked as a result. But it turned out to be o.k., because right as the sun set, the rain stopped and we were rewarded with and awesome sunset, and a few minutes to dry our clothes in sunlight and by the fire. The fish that night and next morning didn't bite, so the last morning we all took turns swimming in the lake. There's not too much nicer than skinny dipping in a cold fresh lake of mountain water, with the sun shining and a warm fire to return to. We didn't quite pack out all of our food like we had hoped, but we were all tired of eating fish, so I deem it a success.

Winter Prospecting

      Even with the cold 13 degree temps, the gold bug bit and I took a sick day from my physics class. My field geology class had already been canceled for inclement weather, so the day was wide open. Leaving around noon, I hurried up Clear Creek Canyon with sluice, buckets, bar and shovels in tow. Arriving at the locality I had been e-prospecting, I found that it was north facing, coated in snow, and had already seen the most sun for that day. Delightful! To add to the elation, the spot was just downwind of a sewage treatment plant. It looked like there had been lots of past digging in this spot, behind boulders mainly, so I found myself an undug boulder at the top of the placer and started chipping away.
     Well, the ground was frozen solid. So I started chipping at the frozen creek, and finally worked up some water. Pouring this on the ground, I hoped, would thaw it enough to be dug, but it just froze within seconds and made a nice little pool of ice.
     Scratching that idea, I started pounding the ground with bar and shovel, and managed to work out about a half bucket of material. The material came off of a clay layer about 4 inches down that was frozen solid. Scraping the clay was just like curling very hard chocolate, but you would see gold flakes as they were pulled out! Curiosity finally got to me, and I took a handful of the material and panned it quickly. This one handful had about 9 or 10 finds, well worth the time.
     The hard work was keeping me warm, but after about two hours with almost a half-bucket of material and no water with which to sluice, I packed up and headed home. At home, I quickly set up my desert fox-a machine like an archimedes spiral that separates gold and attempted to classify the material, which just separates it all by size. The water froze in the classifying screens, and left me soaked in muddy water and with cold hands. The sun had gone down by then, and the water in the wheel also froze on the desert fox, so there wasn't a chance. I packed it up and went inside, cold and disappointed.

Calcite Crystals and Caves

After doing much probing to find information on the Owl Canyon calcite locality, I didn't find much. Well, a few things
    1. A book - The Rockhound's Guide to Colorado by Kappele that listed this as a locality and not much detail about where to find or look for crystals.
    2. A friend, telling me that his dad had once found crystals in this spot.
    3. Best of all, a cave survey detailing a cave in this exact area, describing the walls of a cave that were literally lined with crystals. Now that's promising!

    After some trailfinding and bushwhacking, I made it to the outcrop, where Colorado Lien had previously  dug some pits down to unexposed limestone. From what I understand, this company mines the limestone for a supplement in cattle feed.  The limestone that the crystals occur in is the Fort Hays member of the Niobrara formation. I examined, smashed, and overturned lots of boulders, and searched directly on the outcrop for calcite crystals.

As for the cave, it descends probably 20' to 25' vertically and the horizontal is probably close to the same. I didn't quite reach the end, claustrophobia kicked in when things got tight, and being alone didn't help, though I am sure it just right down around the corner. The description, though, is quite accurate, the walls protrude in triangular calcite crystals, many have been smashed away. The degradation of the cave is evident, and sad. A small piece of plastic was in the main chamber, and I promptly found room in my pocket for it. As to the exact location of this cave, that information is only for those who are trustworthy. Preserving this cave is very important, and the more people that know about it (who will not take care of it) severely decreases the time that we will be able to enjoy it.