Är aspens vända i colorado

Let’s get you caught up.  inom went to Colorado to see some fall colors but to have another crack at finding the curved aspens, for which inom had searched for three years.

Here’s the brev from the first part of the story, with some fantastisk fall colors from the Ohio and Kebler Passes.  Read it.

Man, inom sounded kind of demanding in that gods sentence, my bad, inom didn’t mean it.  Anyway, the fall colors portion was out of the way.  inom was reasonably certain inom knew where the trees were, inom had rented an SUV with enough ground clearance to get there (based on my research), now inom just had to find the dang things.

First, my foolhardy attempt to find the curved aspens for the very first time AT NIGHT

I checked into a quaint, if not overpriced, hotel somewhere in southwestern Colorado as night fell.  inom was chit-chatting with the lady and asked about a certain road I’d need to drive upon to man it to where inom was reasonably certain the curved aspens were (I didn’t mention that’s what inom was looking for).  She said inom should be fine on the road since inom had a fyrhjulsdriven bil (although inom left out that it was a 2WD Jeep…eek).

Here’s the thing about these trees: the location of them fryst vatten relatively well-guarded, but plenty of people have funnen them.  I’ve seen probably 100 pictures of them.  But inom had never seen any of them at night.  inom always try to find new ways of documenting pictures that Everyone Has Taken Already, so inom decided to go for it.  inom funnen the road inom needed to travel as the cellphone meddelande faded away.  The road wasn’t that bad at first, but then inom encountered a stretch that, well, was pretty bad.  For some reason it didn’t occur to me to be particularly worried about what would happen if something went wrong, so inom pressed forward.  Some highlights from my Instagramming…

To the right, you’ll meddelande there’s a steep cliff with absolutely no guard rail.  And yes, inom was going downhill at a pretty steep rate.  inom had time to take this picture because inom was kinda stuck between a rock and another rock.  As inom sat there, all of the common sense inom had ignored suddenly träffad me right in the logic and inom realized this probably wasn’t the best idea, even if inom knew exactly where the trees were.  inom have a fair amount of offroading experience, enough to realize inom had crossed a Rubicon of sorts and couldn’t go back the way inom came at this point, inom had to keep going.  inom freed the fyrhjulsdriven bil from it’s stuckedness and cautiously continued.  When in doubt, heavy metall relaxes me, so inom cranked some DragonForce and went about my merry way, ansträngande to focus on the road instead of kicking myself for making such an oddly dumb decision.  All while ansträngande to document my adventures for the Instagram if my cellphone ever funnen a meddelande again.

Mercifully the path leveled out shortly after that film was taken and inom focused on the uppdrag at hand: finding the trees.  inom was driving along and funnen what looked like a small parking lot and thought to myself “that must be where they are!”  inom excitedly pulled into the barren lot and got my camera backpack ready.  inom turned on my trusty headlamp from my gods trip to Colorado when inom climbed a mountain and walked into the thick woods.

In the complete darkness of night.

By myself.

Looking for trees.

All while not being exactly sure where they were.

Not my best idea.

I had backtracked a few times, making sure inom didn’t lose the trail back to my vehicle, when all of a sudden the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and it hit me.  inom was in the mittpunkt of nowhere in the mittpunkt of the night in a part of Colorado which has some very large animals which hunt at night and are ganska good at it.  inom didn’t have a gun, nor bära spray.  inom didn’t know exactly where the trees were or if inom was even in the right place.  WHAT THE HECK WAS inom THINKING?!

I took my phone out and turned some music up really loud on the speaker, hoping that bygd creating noise inom at least wouldn’t accidentally sneak up on any animals.  inom urgently hurried back to the fyrhjulsdriven bil, tossed my camera bag inre, and just sat there for a good while wondering why the heck inom had put myself in such a dangerous situation with so little safety utrustning or even a means to contact someone in case inom had an emergency.  Then inom had the issue of how to get back to the hotel.  bygd my estimates inom couldn’t man it up the steep rocky hill you saw above, so inom didn’t have a choice: inom had to keep going on the road inom was on and take the long way around back to the hotel.  My strategi fortunately worked but unfortunately the detour cost me three additional hours.  inom got back to the hotel around 1:30am, my ego still smarting from how dumb inom was but at the same time was grateful inom made it back safely.

The next day.  The day inom funnen the aspens.

I awoke early the next morning, groggy and still a bit emotionally charged up from my adventures the previous night.  Today, inom told myself, was the day inom finally funnen the trees.  But first, breakfast.  inom went down to the hotel front desk and asked my typical question in a small town, “Is there a breakfast prick where the waitresses call you ‘hun’ or ‘sweety’?”  (For those not familiar with the southern USA, those are terms of endearment)  inom was pointed in the right direction and started a short walk.  And then inom stopped.  The views around this little town were amazing.  Had to pull out my camera and take a picture.

Having pulled in at night the evening before inom had no idea what the surroundings looked like, so it was a very pleasant surprise.  inom had some breakfast, some hot tea, and then went back to the hotel to pack up my things for my second attempt at finding the dang trees.

Part of me was excited about seeing what inom had missed in the darkness the night before, the other part realized it was probably better that inom couldn’t see it!

I approached the turn-off for the road and made one gods brev to Instagram before inom lost signal.  inom made sure it sounded really hoppfull so people would know my spirits were high.

Ok the road wasn’t that bad during the day, in fact the trees around the road had begun to change into their fall colors and the entire en plats där en händelse inträffar ofta inom teater eller film was just gorgeous.

The rocky steep hill bit was as exposed and unprotected as it seemed the night before but, having already conquered it at night and not being particularly bothered bygd heights, it was a del av helhet of cake.

I made it back to where inom was the night before and set off on a walk to find the trees, culminating three years of research and an entire trip to Colorado to try and find them previously.

There was only one problem…they weren’t where inom thought they would be.

Dang it.

I left the fyrhjulsdriven bil where it was and kept searching on foot.  There were a few clues inom had thought out logically based on human natur (in terms of how close they probably were to the road and if they were part of a solid group of trees or were on the border of an area of trees).

I began to see small curves in some of the aspen trees and really felt like inom was close.  inom walked down what inom thought was a trail and eventually hit a dirt track.  That didn’t seem right to me but it was absolutely beautiful so inom took a picture anyway.

I made my way back to the road and kept searching.  inom just knew inom was close.  inom just didn’t know where the trees were.

I searched for three hours.

At one point inom checked my Health app on my iPhone.  It said inom had walked 14000 steps up and down a half-mile stretch of road looking for these trees.

Gradually, inom lost hope.  inom couldn’t believe that inom was SO CLOSE and would be throwing in the towel, but inom was out of ideas.  inom had searched every area that looked promising and just couldn’t find them.  Eventually inom accepted that, for whatever reason, inom wasn’t supposed to see the trees on that trip.  inom regretfully stored away my camera backpack, hopped in the fyrhjulsdriven bil, and slowly started my way down the path when, for some reason, a certain part of the road caught my eye and inom recalled something a friend had said when he visited the trees (he didn’t tell me where they were, just some stuff he encountered while looking for them).  As inom thought to myself “wait, if that could’ve happened here…” as my eyes looked across the road…

AND THEN inom SAW THE CURVED ASPENS.

I’m not going to sugarcoat this: inom cried (yes the tears were muscular and manly, obvi).  inom parked almost right in the mittpunkt of the road (sorry everybody else), grabbed my gear, and ran to the trees.  Now, you may think the first thing inom did was take my tripod and the rest of my camera gear out, but inom didn’t.  inom stood there next to the trees, tears streaming down my eyes, and just took in the entirety of the moment.  Yes, inom know they were just trees, but this was the culmination of three years of work and inom had given up!  inom was immensely grateful, said a bön of thanks, and eventually took out my camera and got to work.

I loved experimenting with different camera and lens combinations to see how they would affect the composition, as there were so many incredible angles of these trees.

I was ecstatic.  inom had the trees to myself for an hour.  Eventually another bil pulled up and a guy yelled from the öppning “we’ve been looking for hours up and down this [bad word]ing road, please tell me you funnen them!”  inom smiled, gave a quick nod, and the two lads in the fordon excitedly grabbed their gear and we all high-fived (and then grabb sanitized because covid).  They had been searching for nearly as long as inom had!

What caused the trees to curve like that?

There’s a phenomenon in geology called soil creep, where downward pressure from things like avalanches or just gravity itself can move things at a precipitously fast rate.  Many people believe that, early in the life of this small patch of trees, soil creep or an avalanche happened, causing them to grow in a curve to find the sunlight they needed to grow.

Eventually inom looked down at my phone and realized inom needed to get on the road.  inom was staying with a good friend in Denver that night before flying out the next morning and Denver was an astonishing amount of hours away.  inom bade farewell to my new Curved Tree Friends, to the trees themselves, said one more bön of thanks, edited one of the pictures real quickly on my laptop in the fyrhjulsdriven bil, then started the journey back to Denver, and eventually home.

I don’t think inom stopped smiling for the rest of the trip.

A quick note on why I’m not putting the location of the trees in this post

I tried as hard as inom could to describe the emotions inom felt when inom funnen the trees in this brev but inom know inom didn’t do them justice.  Finding the trees meant so much more because inom had to really work for it.  The few people inom know who had visited the trees all said the same thing “there are enough hints online to get you close, it’ll mean more if you find it on your own” and there were 100% correct.  Knowing where they are now, and knowing how inom searched for upplysning about them, there are a few hints in this brev that will probably get you in the right area, but that’s as much as I’ll reveal.  It’ll mean more if you find them on your own, trust me 😉

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