November 15, 2024
I’d last hiked at Eldorado Canyon State Park, on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado, 6 years ago during a mother-daughter trip up to Wyoming. My husband had never seen it. So late one afternoon, at the end of a day trip to Boulder from our Denver VRBO, we took a sunset stroll along Eldorado Canyon‘s easy Fowler Trail. The views were fabulous, with plunging walls of tilted rock framing a distant glimpse of tawny plains.
The setting sun was gilding serrated peaks.
Diagonal lines in the sandstone cliffs are evidence of uplift that occurred 65 million years ago. Read the whole remarkable story of the canyon’s creation here.
We spotted rock climbers pulling themselves up a red cliff face, as small as ants scaling a table leg.
I’m always awed to read how mountains rise and fall over time. They are not static as they seem — not at all. However, the scale of time over which they transform puts our human troubles in zen-like perspective. We are just a blip in the here and now compared to them.
Near the end of the trail, a slope alight with flaming red sumacs stopped me in my tracks.
A blaze of fall foliage!
Eldorado Canyon in early October makes for a lovely fall hike. I’m glad we were able to squeeze it into our day trip to Boulder.
Up next: The gardens of Denver’s beloved Washington Park. For a look back at plantsman Kelly Grummons’s xeric garden in Lakewood, click here.
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