Editor’s Note: This is one of a handful of posts that were in the hopper prior to my old iMac giving up the ghost last fall.
It was impossible not to notice the stand of aspen as Scott Smith and I made our way up the Mosca Pass trailhead last summer. “This would make for nice foliage pictures come fall,” I thought to myself.
So when late September rolled around, I suggested to Monica, we pack up the dogs and go check out some autumn color. It’s something we do most years, but this year’s pilgrimage to Mosca Pass was a new wrinkle to the ritual. And it did not disappoint.
We were halfway down the half mile trail before we let the dogs off the leashes and made the turn to meadow a few minutes later. Then there they were, hundreds of 70-foot high trees shrouded in gold. And we had the place to ourselves. Monica and I spent maybe 40 minutes or so walking among them and taking pictures while the dogs raced around.
We were heading back home along Highway 69 just past Gardner when I suggested we take the Forest Service road that hooks-up with the Greenhorn Mountain Road which would eventually take us to Highway 165, allowing us to double up on our aspen adventure.
What’s that adage: the road to ruin is paved with good intentions?
A route that should have taken, at most, 40 minutes stretched to nearly two hours. Yes, Monica and I did see some beautiful country as we wound and bounced our way along Roads 630 and 420 in my 15-year-old truck. But I was more concerned about the late afternoon hour and the prospect of having to navigate those mountain roads in the dark than stopping to document the natural beauty enveloping us. No one was more relieved (ecstatic, actually) than I was when came up on a guy who told us the Greenhorn Mountain Road was just a quarter-mile up the road. Monica said she knew we’d find the road. “I had confidence in you, honey,” she dutifully assured me.
Fast forward to two weeks later. Inexplicably Monica, the dogs, and I were at it again. We were in Las Animas County just west of Aguilar in search of more aspen. “Let’s turn here, it says ‘scenic byway,'” Monica boldly suggested with nary a hint of the unease that frame our previous trek. Armed this time with our trusty Colorado Gazeteer we plotted a course that would take us past the Apishapa Trailhead, over the Cordova Pass, to Highway 12 and Cuchara. It was a great call by Monica. I’d recommend that drive to anyone wanting to take in Colorado’s fall colors. It was simply gorgeous.
