Hiking Bear Creek in Telluride

Colorado Travelog #24
Telluride, CO - Wednesday, 6 Jul 2022, 11:30am

Today we're hiking the Bear Creek trail in Telluride. It's a 5 mile round-trip hike with a gain of a little over 1,000'.

Like several other trails in Telluride (and for that matter, Ouray too) the Bear Creek trail starts at the end of the street in residential area only a few blocks from downtown. Parking was already getting busy by 9:45 when we arrived. We found a spot 4 blocks away. We hit the trail part of the trail by 10am.

The first leg of the trail climbs through the forest before rounding a bend into the Bear Creek valley. After a mile or so the view start to open up.



The trail here doesn't look too steep— and it isn't. The stretch up to this point is steeper, but even that is gently graded. This is one of those trails where you climb 1,000' but don't feel like you've climbed 1,000'.



Various hiker comments in trail blogs warned us about how crowded this trail can get. Indeed, the parking crunch at the bottom led us to believe it'd be a crowded day. And while ideally we could've started an hour earlier (but couldn't because our AirBnB was unexpectedly 45 minutes away) hiking it now really hasn't been that bad. Part of it is that the trail is wide, a cleared fire road most of the way up. Groups can pass each other without squeezing past. If this were a single-track trail it'd feel a lot more crowded. Then too, it's not that late. I imagine people only just starting the trail now are seeing more crowds than we have.



The views in the first two photos I've shared here are the sides of the canyon. It's beautiful walking below the towering ridges, but also beautiful is the waterfalls at the back of the canyon (photo above). This is still just a distance view of the falls; we're still a few hundred meters away. According to hikers we just spoke to the trail goes right up to the bottom of the falls. Look for up-close pics in my next blog!

Getting a New MacBook... But First, Getting a New Credit Card

I've been waiting to replace my laptop, a MacBook Air I've had for now... 6.5 years! When the M2 MacBook Air was announced several weeks ago I decided it's time to upgrade. This new version is literally what I was waiting for... even though it's not everything I was hoping for. (The inclusion of an SD card slot would've made it 💯.)

The new Air went on sale for preorders last Friday. I didn't rush to place an order because I was on vacation and it's not that urgent I replace this machine. But this week I'm back at home, so on Tuesday I went to Apple's site and started speccing out my machine. Before I pushed the "Buy it now" button I realized... I need a new credit card first! 🤣

Okay, so I don't literally need a new credit card. I have several already I can purchase the machine on. But it's a sizeable purchase, and I'd like to get maximum value from credit card points for it. That means opening a new credit card with a big sign-up bonus, and using this big purchase to go a long way toward meeting the spending requirement.

I applied online for a new credit card and was accepted right away. The card should arrive in the mail mid-next week. Once I've got the card I'll order my next laptop. Between now and then I think I might visit an Apple store to see one in person. The machine are supposed to be in stores tomorrow. I figure that although the machines are sold out for a few weeks at this point the stores will retain a few copies to use as demo models on the floor. I'm curious about how the new non-wedge shape looks as well as whether the "midnight" color looks more blue or black

Hiking Bear Creek Falls

Colorado Travelog #25
Telluride, CO - Wednesday, 6 Jul 2022, 2pm

Our hike 2.5 miles up to Bear Creek Falls this morning was fairly pleasant. It certainly didn't feel like we'd climbed over 1,000' to nearly 10,000' elevation. As we got within the last 200 meters or so of the falls the trail shrank from a wide fire road down to a single-track footpath winding through the undergrowth. We forged through it and came out on a rocky slope at the foot of the falls.



Here there were a few large rocks to sit on to enjoy the view. The area was somewhat crowded when we arrived, but people were filtering out as the sky increasingly threatened rain. Indeed, shortly after we claimed a nice perch for ourselves it did start to rain!

We stayed through the rain because we were prepared for it. ...Well, Hawk was prepared; I was somewhat prepared. Hawk had brought a rain poncho. I only had a light jacket and a broad brimmed hat. I forgot to pack my rain jacket when we left California days ago. But the light jacket worked well enough today as the rain didn't get particularly heavy.



Why sit atop a rock eating a trail lunch in the rain? We do it because the view, in some ways, gets better. The darker sky really brought out the colors in the cliff next to us. And as the weather shifted from moment to moment we enjoyed many moments of sun-shower: times when the sky overhead was sunny, but rain was still falling on us.



The rain abated after 15-20 minutes. We decided we'd been at the falls long enough, so we began the trek 2.5 miles back down the valley into town. Hawk kept her rain poncho on (as seen in the photo above) but it didn't rain anymore on us.

Update: About 20 minutes after we finished hiking the skies opened up and absolutely poured rain. We timed it just right!