With sunny skies and the temperature in the 70s, spring came roaring back to Boulder today. Almost overnight grass turned green and flowers bloomed. My mood too has lifted by many corresponding degrees.

Just four days ago we were blessed with more than 5 inches of exceptionally wet snow followed by constant rain the next day. Already the snow has melted.

In its wake the ground is as wet as ever. The moisture is great for everything — except hiking.

So today I eschewed a wet wilderness experience in favor of one that wouldn’t get my boots muddy. Looking through my local hiking guides, I came across one perfect for the day. A hard-surface trail that I normally would have shunned circles around the four Golden Ponds north of Longmont about half an hour from here. Even better, it was new to me.

New life had burst forth. The buds on this tree attracted this big bee:

Coming in To Land

A butterfly was already there:

First Butterfly of Spring

Even more exciting for me was to see a brood of chicks. Without seeing them with mama, I wouldn’t have known that they are Canada Geese:

Young and Old Canada Geese

But the ponds were the usual blue color, not golden. I did see some tree branches beginning to flower that were yellow, although not actually golden. I figured that maybe at sunset the ponds would appear golden like in the 1981 movie, “On Golden Pond.”

Finally a statue at the end of the trail unravelled the riddle for me. Family and friends of Vernon V. Golden (1912-1989) dedicated it to him for making the park possible.