When local folks say they haven’t seen such gorgeous autumn colors in 30 years, you know you picked a good day to take an autumn road trip into the mountains! Come along on this glorious trip to see Nature’s annual end-of-summer spectacle.
It’s that time of year again! Welcome to the glorious aspen and ground cover colors at Cottonwood Lake. It is a small lake three miles off State Highway 306, best known as home to Cottonwood Pass. We will visit there soon for amazing beauty at 12,126 ft elevation. Now, we are about 9,600 ft high along the shore of Cottonwood Lake!
Mueller State Park is about 28 miles into the mountains from Colorado Springs. Covering 5,121 acres with ponds, rock outcropping, mountain views in every direction, and amazing aspen groves, a walk this time of year will be spectacular! Grab your water and get ready because we start our hike at about 9,650 feet and it will be a down and up huffer puffer as we drop 500 feet to Preacher’s Hollow and Never-Never Pond. We’ll take it slow because the thin air at this elevation will take its toll on us both!
It is autumn my friend, and the talk of Colorado being THE place to visit this time of year is absolutely true. I’ve always thought, oh sure, but it can’t be that good, after all, Montana has Tamaracks. I was wrong! The color across the rocks; the ground cover everywhere including the tundra; the huge, dense aspen groves in every shade of yellow/gold/orange/red. WOW–let’s go!
