Joche Wizlo: Chautauqua

Oh Chautauqua. I once read in a magazine that any true Boulderite will have hiked Chautauqua at least once, but I think the magazine got it wrong. Perhaps what it meant to say is that any true Boulderite will have run Chautauqua at least once. Every time you go to hike in the park, which is full of steep trails, you will have lean Boulderites in North Face, sweat-wicking running shorts breeze past you on a pleasant jog while you're huffing and puffing at a steady plodding place with sweat dripping from your forhead. Jeez.

Anyway, this pretty park is well loved by the locals, meaning that any given day will find the parking lots full and the trails well trodden. But, like most trails, it's not so bad if you go early during the week, which is just what Jo and I did. After our snowy experience up in Estes, we decided to stick to a trail that we were sure would be nice and...green. So, Chautauqua it was.

Specifically, we wanted to get to the top of the Flat-irons, pictured below.

Show 'em what they've won, Jo... a beautiful hike!

We walked at our usual pace, and did indeed have trail runners blowing by. Oh well. The good thing about Jo is that he is not at all competitive with others when it comes to hiking, so we pretty much do our own thing. Besides, if we were running we might have missed this prime piece of protein just laying right there on the trail, begging to be consumed.

When we got up to the forest we found this amazingly cool cairn garden, which definitely wasn't here the last time we were at Chautauqua. Very zen and meditative.

In fact, ut even inspired Jo to spontaneousl perform some Joga. As you can see, he is completely relaxed and focused; totally in his element.

Of course we had to add our own cairn to the mix, so I went off to gather some rocks.

And there it is. Isn't it cute?

Movin' on... We found this guy chewing a nut in the tree. It's an Aberts squirrel. Different than our beloved Greyie and Blackie, mostly because of the tufted ears.

Below our some more wildflowers we collected. Once again, I'm not going to post the names here, since they're on Jo's site.

The thing about Chautauqua is that pretty much all of the trails keep going up and up...not too much flat going on here. The payoff, of course, is the views.

There are five Flat-irons, and we hiked to the top of the first one. In case you don't know, the Flat-irons are the sheer vertical rock faces on the mountains just outside of Boulder. They really are unique and lovely.

Jo.

And me.

This is a view from the back of the first Flat-iron. We hung out on a rock for awhile and enjoyed the solitude; no one else was up here but us.

This is a view looking up from the rock we were laying on.

We of course had to take some ridiculous pictures because, well...that's just what we do.

Here we are being "rock monsters."

And another pretty view of Boulder, all layed out below us. This was taken on the way back.

And here's a fat and lazy lizard who was kind enough to let me take his picture as he was sunning himself on a rock.

Chautauqua is very popular with rock climbers, but most of them use ropes, and ropes are for sissies. Jo prefers to cling to the sheer, vertical cliff faces with his bare hands.