One of many
trip reports under the
SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie
Grow.
Email me at
ajs@frii.com.
Last update: March 17, 2024
(Previous trip report: 1996_0810-12_SummerWeekend.htm)
(From email I sent to a friend:)
A visit to an unlucky spot on the CSU Pingree Park mountain campus... It was hit by a rare mountain tornado, and within ten years it was also burned by a forest fire. Naturally I wanted to see it sometime. :-)
> Did you hike thru the burned area?
Yes, but not directly, some exploring was required... Picture this:
It's 2 pm on a Sunday, the Broncos just got creamed, I have cabin fever... I nearly go to Estes Park to hike a peak for sunset when I recall my desire to visit this site at Pingree. (Coming across my old photos helps remind me.)
I drove up Buckhorn Canyon, happy to finally be out of ridiculous city traffic; over Pennock Pass (solid snow on the road, up to 8" deep in spots, 4WD in my Subaru, woo hoo!) Got to Pingree (through more deep snowdrifts on the road), and it was closed for the winter! Stopped at a deserted gate across the road, just after the road forked; geared up, and headed up the hill just 20 minutes before sunset!
Nobody on the planet knew where I was, but I had my radio, headlamp, and lots of water, food, and warm clothing...
I pushed up the hill briskly... Great workout in the cold air. Terrain alternated from nearly dry to 4' deep snow drifts -- serious postholing, even a little crawling on top. I reached the high point northeast of the Park around sunset and could barely make out where the tornado spot was about 1/4 mile south. What the heck, I went for it! (Though it was too dark to photograph when I got there.)
It was hard to find... Lots of postholing up and down through deep unburned forest. I popped out on another burned area, but it was hard to know for sure which way to go. The area sloped downhill a lot more, and was rougher, than it appeared from the air (as always). Pretty sunset, starting to get dark. Hmm... I studied the photo and the map again, turned back toward the car and the clearest area (I'd overshot a bit), and found it!
By 20 minutes after sunset I was sitting on a rock in a spot where, near as I could tell, it was the center of the cyclone. It was very subtle. As I turned around slowly I noticed that nearly all the trees laying on the ground around me were across my line of sight, in every direction except up the hill, where they pointed at me. Overall they were laid down in more or less one prevailing direction, southwest-northeast. At the center spot though, if I looked carefully, I could see the rotary pattern. Right at this spot there were trees "surrounding" you within about 20'. Nothing special marked this spot though.
Also there were a surprising number of (burned, denuded) trees still standing. The tornado didn't flatten them all. The center spot was an island of about five standing trees within, oh, 40' of each other. Of course everything around, laying down or standing, was burned, dead, and barren.
> Is it all growing back?
I saw surprisingly little sign of that after more than two years. There was lots of raw, exposed rock and gravel (where not snow-covered), complete with elk tracks and droppings. Very little new vegetation apparent, though it would have been leafless this time of year.
I only stayed for about 15 minutes, then postholed and bushwhacked back down in the lifeless, serene gloom. I managed to dead-reckon my way to a cabin between two lakes (showed up on the aerial photo), then a road, then follow the road back to my car, all in 30 minutes. During 16 miles driving down to the Poudre Canyon I saw not another single vehicle, and only five more all the way down to Teds Place.
(Next trip report: 1997_0215-20_DeathValley.htm)