Mayflower Gulch ~ April 1st, 2006

Location... The Mayflower Gulch winter trailhead is a medium-sized parking lot just East of Hwy 91 about 6 miles South of Copper Mountain and Interstate 70. The upper reaches of the trail offer remendous views of the Ten Mile Range, including Fletcher Mountain.

The Route... The short trail resides in Arapaho National Forest and is an easy to moderate snow shoe or cross-country ski route. At about 1.5 miles from the trailhead, you emerge from the trail at the old, abandoned site of the Boston Mine. There are tremendous views of the Ten Mile Range, including Fletcher Mountain, from this location. And from here you have many options to continue your exploration. Another steep .75 miles will take you to the upper bowl where there is an interesting two story mine structure. Side trips up and along the ridge to the South offer excellent scenery and skiing.

This was the 2nd Colorado Nature Photographers winter outing to Mayflower Gulch. It is always a pleasure to spend time with others who share my passion for photography and the mountains. We arrived at the trailhead at 12:30pm. And it didn't take long to gear up and hit the trail. The weather was iffy, at best. There were periods when thick clouds would move in, the wind would pick up, and the snow would really start to fly. But sporadically, we had glimpses of blue sky and every once in a while the sun would poke through and provide dazzling illumination to the snow covered landscape.

We slowly made our way up the first leg of the trail. Mostly we were enjoying the fresh air and scenery, but we all admitted to not being as fit as we would like to be. Busy schedules keep many of us from spending as much time in the outdoors as we would like. It is approximately 1.5 miles from the trailhead to the first set of cabin ruins - leftovers from the Boston Mine. This portion of the trail is almost entirely through thick forest. Views of the upper basin and surrounding peaks are few and brief. But just before reaching the cabins you emerge from the treed forest and the expansive views unfold! At this time of year, the snow-pack is quite deep, covering many features and swallowing the old cabin ruins. The snow level drifted through old doorways and windows and swept up to rooflines in some areas.

We had plenty of time before sunset so we decided to continue up to the higher bowl and check out the 2 story mining structure. I had visited it during the summer months, but never in winter. This second leg of the trail is much less-traveled, steeper and can really take your breath away as it climbs to over 12,200 feet elevation. It took about another 45 minutes to reach the old mining structure. Much of the way I created my own trail. There was several inches of soft snow on top of a hard crust, so the skiing conditions were quite good. Severe weather continued to roll through periodically. At times the light was incredibly flat (not good for photography). But we also got a couple good clearings with interesting clouds and sun. We all took a break at the mining structure, then pulled out cameras and tripods to make some images. The mining structure is much bigger than it looks from a distance and Fletcher Mountain looms directly above. The building has a cable that runs at least a couple thousand feet up to a vertical mine shaft building perched, precariously on the side of the north ridge. The building itself is also very interesting, constructed of thick timbers held together with old rusted bolts and nails. I'm usually much more interested in the landscape surrounding these old mining buildings, but the light was not cooperating while we were up here. So I made images of some of the building details. I actually like the second image below quite a bit.

After about 45 minutes of shooting around the upper bowl the weather started to clear a bit. I wanted to get down and take some photos while the skies were clearer, so I started to head down. At about the same time, we saw 2 individuals on snowshoes heading up the ridge on the South side of the lower basin. We knew others from CNP were planning on meeting up with us, and thought that these 2 might be part of our group. Since I was on skis, my downhill trip was very quick. I crested the ridge of the upper bowl in about 5 minutes and saw that there were more people down beside the first cabins. It only took about 10 minutes to arrive at their location.

We all chatted a while, debating and forecasting about what the day's sunset conditions might be like. The rest of my party arrived, everyone re-fueled and re-hydrated, and after a while, we began deciding where we were each going to head for the evening light. One by one, we headed off, in mostly different directions. I decided to head back up the basin a ways and then cut South and scale part way up the ridge to where I could see some large rock outcrops. Originally, I thought these might make interesting foreground objects. But as I arrived, I decided instead to use them as a wind break, crouching down on the leeward side.

The light was not great, but we did get some nice breaks that lit up the range. By the time the sun had sunk low enough to provide the really warm pinks of sunset, the clouds had moved back in and it began to snow again. I'll have to return another day for alpenglow on the Ten Mile Range.

After returning to the first cabins and re-grouping, we all headed down. Instead of taking the main trail, which I knew was going to be hard-packed and icy, I took a lower less-traveled trail. The snow was fantastic and I made it back to the vehicle before I needed to break out my headlamp. We loaded up and headed down to Idaho Springs for some Beau Jo's Pizza and a few beers. What a great way to end a fantastic day in the mountains.