The day was heavily overcast, so I didn’t expect to take any pictures. I just went out for the exercise.

Since I had little time between working this morning on an article for Health Central and my “Diabetes Update” newsletter and my expectation to see a play tonight (Chekhov’s “Seagull”), I picked a nearby trail. The Shanahan Ridge trail is a 5-mile loop up the North Shanahan Fork to the Mesa Trail and back down on the South Shanahan Fork. It’s pleasant enough, but I never considered it to be exciting. Which matched the weather.

Of course, I took my camera, and a few flowers did pose for me. I try to keep the background of my flower photos simple, and rocks and creeks serve that purpose well:
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Variety is the spice of my life. Which may in part explain why I have been married three times and engaged twice more.

I’m always seeking new experiences, so I seldom return to trails that I hiked recently. But only 12 days ago I hiked the Spring Brook Loop Trail, finding “Fields of Flowers,” including the rare and beautiful coralroot orchid.

And my love of that flower drove me to return today. When I saw the coralroot on my previous hike, it wasn’t yet in bloom, and several people I showed my photo to doubted if it was a coralroot. I wanted to prove to myself that what I saw and photographed was indeed a coralroot orchid.
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Today I planned to hike up to Mallory Cave from the trailhead at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which is just a couple of miles from my apartment. But by the time that I reached the intersection with the Mesa Trail, I knew that I wanted to go further up into the mountains.

Since I thought that I knew these trails so well, I didn’t carry a map. But the county had posted one at the intersection. Seeing that the trail up Bear Canyon — where I had never previously hiked — was so close, I spontaneously changed my plans.

That’s one reason why I almost never tell anyone where I plan to hike. If I never returned, too many people would be wasting their time in looking for my body in the wrong place.
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Today’s hike with a small Sierra Club group was delightful.

I usually hike alone and love the quiet. But today we talked almost the whole way, and I found that I liked it just as much. The difference was the I liked all the people in the group.

The trip leader was Steve Welter, Ph.D., who teaches geography at the University of Colorado — and who also taught his four followers today. The group included a young engineer named Anna and two sisters, Jan and Judy:
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You can’t go home again because the old place just isn’t the same. But going back to where you’ve been can tell you something about your journey in life.

Yesterday evening I returned to the Button Rock Preserve north of Lyons. In the 13 months since I had hiked the Sleepy Lion loop trail there the trail hadn’t changed. But I had.

My photography in that previous photo essay doesn’t please me now, and the difference wasn’t the camera. Both times I used my Panasonic Lumix because my Canon 50D SLR and telephoto lens are still back in Japan for repairs. The difference was my higher standards and knowledge of photography now.
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“What is your favorite hike?” I asked my chiropractor yesterday.

“It’s the trail that climbs up between the First and Second Flatirons,” he replied. The four Flatirons are the very symbol of Boulder.

That was enough to get me there today. I had seen the trail on maps, but assumed that it was only for rock climbers.

The trail does climb steeply from Chautauqua Park for 1,450 feet to the saddle between the First and Second Flatiron. The climb took me four hours this morning, although it was only a 3 mile round trip.
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The wildflowers in the foothills came out in force while I was away for a week in Houston. Like they say of a watched pot never seeming to boil, watched wildflowers don’t seem to bloom. My leaving Boulder brought the flowers forth!

While I was in Houston to report on the convention of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists I saw no mountains. The only things rising above that level city were dozens of skyscrapers. Not so nice.

Returning yesterday evening, I normally would have been playing catch up this morning. But it was too beautiful a day in Boulder to miss. Under clear skies and no wind, the temperature rose to 86 degrees.
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Tomorrow my walking will be limited to airports and hotel lobbies. I’m flying to Houston to report on the annual convention of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.

So today I had to hit the trail. My knees are already well recovered from my fall Friday. Climbing up or down is no problem.

My camera was not so lucky. Although I managed some photos that were sharp enough on Saturday for my “Walking Meditation” photo essay and yesterday for “Goose Creek,” today I checked out the camera and lens at the camera store in Boulder where I bought them. They showed me where the barrel of the lens was loose, which was the reason why I had trouble locking it closed. I had them send it in to Canon for repair, which will take up to four weeks.
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In the interest of photography today I sacrificed my aching body.

To capture the beauty of two flowers today I had to get down and dirty. Getting down on my sore knees called out all my dedication to photography, but the results were work it.

Today I walked a four-mile loop along paths in downtown Boulder from my chiropractor’s office, going west to the 29th Street Mall, where I stopped at Peet’s for a cup of coffee, and then north and east along Goose Creek. Here I found a stand of wild blue flax with the creek as the background. I had to kneel down in the wet grass:
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My friend John inspired my walking meditation this afternoon. In my most recent photo essay on hiking Goshawk Ridge I mentioned that by keeping alert for all the wonders of nature my hikes are indeed a sort of walking meditation.

John thought that I would enjoy reading the book Walking Meditation by Nguyen Anh-Huong and Thich Nhat Hanh. Even though this book was published right here in Boulder I had never heard of it, but the local library had a copy that I put on hold.

This morning I went to the library to pick up that book and my three other holds. The librarian commented that those books came from four different libraries: Stuffed: An insider’s look at who’s (really) making america fat from the Jefferson County library, The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health from the Auraria library, Inflammation Nation from Broomfield’s Mamie Doud Eisenhower libary, as well as Walking Meditation from my own city library. As I told the librarian, we have a wonderful inter-library loan system here in Colorado.
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