Long ago someone saw a mountain lion asleep along a trail. So, of course, they named it the Sleepy Lion Trail.
That’s where I hiked today. No lions were in sight. But I saw hundreds of pasqueflowers, as beautiful a flower as the mountain lion is an animal. It’s the first flower of the Colorado spring.
Budding Pasqueflowers
Pasquesflowers in Flower
The Sleepy Lion Trail is a lollipop loop in the Button Rock Preserve north of Lyons. The tail of the trail runs along North St. Vrain Creek all the way to Button Rock Dam and the Ralph Price Reservoir, which holds the water for the city of Longmont. But the Sleepy Lion Trail climbs steeply into the the pine forest to the south, offering great views of the reservoir and, in the background, the Rockies, particularly Mt. Meeker (elevation 13,911) and Longs Peak (elevation 14,259), twin peaks as seen from where I hiked today and the highest elevations in northern Colorado.
It was a five-mile hike in picture perfect weather. In fact, I took more than 50 pictures, some of which, like the pasqueflowers are pretty pretty.
Then there were these pictures of me near the top of Sleepy Lion Trail and looking down on the reservoir and up to the Rockies in the background.
Along Sleepy Lion Trail
In the Background are Mt. Meeker (left) and Longs Peak (right)
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1 Sleepy Lion Trail // May 21, 2009 at 10:50 pm
[...] photography in that previous photo essay doesn’t please me now, and the difference wasn’t the camera. Both times I used my [...]
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