First Attempted Hike to the Royal Arch

Part of my excitement about moving to Colorado is for my favorite activity! Hiking new trails! So I decided to make a plan on Friday to head out to Chautauqua Park. Of course my Sunday morning there were some concerns. Mostly because of cute kitten cuddles. It’s really hard to get out of bed when these guys climb in with me. Ignore the clean clothes hamper, I got to it eventually. 😉

It wouldn’t be a hike with Andy without seriously overpacking. But who wants to sit in sweaty clothes for the hour drive home? Not me.

Before heading to the park I needed to make a stop in downtown Boulder. I didn’t think things through very well and parking was atrocious so I had to park about .75 miles away. However, it turned out to be truly an act of serendipity. As I was happily trekking my way down the boulevard and perusing the shops to see where to have Charles bring me back to later something caught my eye. I gasped… Could it be? ”

At this moment there was a non zero chance that I would never be seen or heard from again. I knew that if I walked into that store it could transport me to another dimension. There was a moment in which I had to question my state of sanity and aliveness as I was for sure that I had been transported to some other dimension where people “get” me. Alas, I was able to enter and leave unharmed. I believe in my joy. I confused the fae woman running the shop and she forgot to trick me. If you know of me and my love of Alpaca’s you will know that it is a miracle that I came out of this store with only 3 things. I mean look at that stunning good boy in the window with their excellent purple scarf.

Chautauqua Park

Eventually I made it and found parking! Woot! I started at Chautauqua trailhead as I did two weeks ago when I tried this park the first time. I had planned to take Chautauqua, over to Bluebell Spur, then down Bluebell Road back to the truck. You know the nice little green one in the map below. “green means easy” 😀 . This is important in a bit. I met a few people along the way and shared pleasantries. I took it a bit slower this time.

Sadly as I was leaving the car I started to get spritzed on. There were a lot of dark clouds coming in and it looked like it might pour so I popped my poncho into my pack and left my good camera in the car. I think these still came out okay though. This cool-looking birdie was kind enough to say hi at the entrance. He just sat there while I was inches from him taking photos. Truly stunning birds, I still need to do some research on what kind they are. There were about 5-6 that I saw in the area.

I took the extra Bluebell Spur trail like I had planned to ahead of time. I stopped to chat with some ladies who weren’t sure which way to go and helped out with photos on my phone. Then I took the path less traveled off into the woods!

It was pretty obvious pretty quickly that even as a stated medium trail that this is much more wild than I’ve ever hiked. I never went more than a 10-15 minutes without someone else coming along on the trail but in general it was more solitudinous than any trails I’ve personally hiked solo.

I spent a lot of time just kind of exploring and looking over the edges of the drop offs to see what I could see.

When I reached the end of the Bluebell Spur trail and realized it was time to head downhill back Bluebell road to the parking lot I felt a bit disappointed. That’s when I remembered… THERE ARE NO RULES! Nothing else to do for the day until evening time so I jumped on Google Maps and it told me there was a landmark 1.1 miles down one of the trails that lay in front of me called the Royal Arch. Well, 1.1 miles doesn’t seem like much so in full Andy spirit I pushed ahead.

Very unassuming… Much wow.

Just past the above beautiful steps… things started getting a bit rocky.

And… rockier….

 And…. at some point I came to the realization that I wasn’t sure at what point the designation between “hiking” and “bouldering” split, but I’m pretty sure it was somewhere in this vicinity.

What lives below?

Me to me: “Oooh there’s a lot of rocks here. Seems they have a lot of kinda holes in between. Better watch out for snakes.
Me to me (halfway across what you see above) catching a glimpse in between a few rocks while climbing over: “Oh God… why did I look.” “Oh, no… ” “oh God”… *cringe* *Shiver* queue images of eldritch horrors running through my mind. Then your eyes can’t look away and you find new crevices and “Oh God… there is no bottom. Oh dear. Should I turn back now… if I turn back now does that make me a chicken?” This is also about where I re-checked the Park map and say the Royal Arch trail in black… meaning “DIFFICULT”. Whoops.

Hope you aren’t afraid of heights!

Then the trail was just like. Bye.

Also found a cute little bridge to do a selfie break. AKA. “Oh God I can’t breathe… maybe if I stop and take a picture while this person walks away they won’t think I’m dying and call 911”. I don’t look like I’m dying here. I look pretty damn cute if I say so myself but I promise you, I was dying.

I again re-evaluated at the bridge whether or not it felt safe to continue and I felt like I still had plenty left in me so away I went. I was not disappointed either. After the trail said bye, this fairyland said hi. A beautiful hummingbird did a few drive-by’s around my head so I decided to watch him for a while and enjoy some deep belly breaths.

Once I got to the top of the steps here in the distance I realized it was a LOT more stairs, there were about two switchbacks of stairs that I could see. At this point, I had made it about .6 miles toward my destination but I knew I had to turn back. I knew I still had a mile and a half or so to get back to the car so I thought it would be best to turn tail and save the rest for another day. I was gifted with beautiful fields of orchids and sunflowers on my way out.

As I was heading downhill on Bluebell road I just had this feeling of longing. Longing to go back, to not leave, and almost a sadness and dare I say even a desperation for the solitude and the song of the wind. As I was walking, seemingly at a slower and slower pace, dragging my feet like a toddler not wanting to leave their favorite playscape I saw a bench just down a ways before the incline got really steep downhill and I decided to have a seat and just let myself be in this place for a little bit longer. Maybe see why there was such a reluctance to leave and if there was something within myself that maybe I needed to attend to. A need I haven’t met. So I sat. I got myself seated comfortably and arranged myself so that I could sit for a while I opened my eyes and I looked up and I saw.

And I felt. What the pictures don’t quite show is the way the sun hits the rocks and how they shimmer and shine with iridescence. How all colors of the rainbow paint the surface in loops and swirls. So I sat and I listened. I thought about how all the things that erode us over time. All the pain and grief. That is like sand and storms and rain on our souls. Yet, like the peaks, the erosion doesn’t make us “less than”. It makes us so much greater. It tears us down and takes us apart but what emerges, while broken, is majestic and beautiful and so … fucking… worthy… Every stream of grief that leaves a scar also brings us closer to ourselves. Closer to that spark of life inside us that when we look upon it we know love. So I sat. I wonder at the thought of all my ancestors who also were eroded and worn down, who sacrificed themselves for their children and their spouses and their culture and their society. I think of them, who shaped me. Because aren’t we all mountains? Aren’t we all the conglomeration of every ancestor that came before us into the distant ages back to the very first people? Are we not mountains of DNA, of love, joy, and grief? I sat. I saw. I understood. Maybe for the first time. That we are like mountains. (if not a bit squishier).

I continued to sit. I sat for the mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins. For every connection back to the first spark of life. In sitting I close my eyes and we sit together. Together, we listen to the wind through the sycamores, pines, and tall grasses. My beautiful singing sycamore.

I remember my grandmother telling me how wonderful the places I wanted to move were because there were Sycamores there. Then I didn’t understand but sitting here with their song I think I do. I sit and I remember the strength and power of three as three Women sat in love and grief and held each other as we held my grandmother in her passing. I sit and I feel my hand in my grandfather’s hand as he squeezes it and pulls me closer there at the end. And here I am not sad for while I remember their passing they sit next to me side by side and I am never alone.

As the waves of emotion began to become a bit too strong I opened my eyes to re-orient myself. As I did, I lay my head back and looked into the sky, and just there above me a beautiful hawk dipping and floating in the heat from the trail. It was like a love letter from my ancestors. As if a “you’re doing okay” from the heavens.

So I sat as a mountain. A feeling of fullness, love, and gratefulness. A feeling of grief, pain, and hope. As my grandmother taught me to sew, I teach myself to create a quilt of it all. A quilt that when I cover myself feels like safety. It feels like home.

So I sat a little longer with this feeling of fullness and gratitude. I imagine it pulsing out from me and into every living being around me and I press out love into the World and into myself and the tears come. Pain, love and hope, and grief flow down my face and I press my love and gratitude out into the World until it feels like there is no more to give. There is a finishing. A completion. 

So I stood and looked back one last time with a full heart and made my way back down Bluebell Road and home. Where I have my best friend and hubby waiting for me, my dear kitty cats, and my old man Bentley who once journeyed on these adventures with me but now stays curled up nice and warm in his bed at home. As I leave, I’m taking a little something more than what I came with. A little more of me.