Longmont Street Walker | Digression — walking Boulder, Mt. Sanitas trail (Oct. 15)

I had occasion to spend most of the day in Boulder today, while I waited for some recall work on our car to complete. I decided to walk Mapleton Ave. from 29th west to the Mt. Sanitas trailhead, and then hiked the Mt. Sanitas trail loop. Then daughter Tiffany was nice enough to bring me a pizza lunch, and dropped me off at the 29th St. mall. I then walked from there east on Arapahoe to about 60th St.

Boulder was hit fairly bad by the flooding a little over a month ago, but the areas I walked were recovering well, and I didn’t see a lot of damage. There were half a dozen places on Mapleton that had what appeared to be sump pumps draining a bit of water from basements. And the Mt. Sanitas valley trail was shut down due to a wash-out from the water, so I had to take the slightly longer Dakota Ridge trail on the final part of the loop.

The following pictures are pretty much in the order I took them throughout the day.

Clean Energy license plate

Orb

apartments?

stick fence

nice looking chair… for the taking

spook

spectre

owner came out to talk… said these were pelicans.. art from Mozambique

hedges

embedded

secluded Buddha

Flatirons in the distance

HELL (world?) sign

interesting architecture

art from one side

art from the other side

Children at play

gateway

modern look

nice house

election time in Boulder

up a level or two

very steep back yard

this old house

no sign of Ajax today (a dog, I presume?)

another interesting house

rock fence

unrotated photo to ease reading # 1

unrotated photo to ease reading # 2

sky profile

sky profile close-up

church

how do I get in?

Catholic church

Catholic church statue

church door # 1

church door # 2

church door # 3

Catholic church inscription

mansion

cute dog

First Church of Christ Scientist

Lutheran church

Historic Mapleton

gets pretty steep uphill from here

Grill Mansion

across from the Grill

laughing hyena?

street bench by the Grill

sandbags to keep the water out?

another laughing hyena?

Grill Mansion

Historic Mapleton School

close-up

Mapleton School 1888

In front of Mapleton School

heading toward Mt. Sanitas

Portal of the Day

Because I could not stop for Death… he kindly stopped for me…

Funny license plate

leaves changing color

row of apartments

Seventh Day Adventist

Rock Fountain?

Boulder Community Hospital

No Bicycles

I assume this is because of road repair in Sunshine Canyon due to flooding

Thank you sign

Hospital entrance

Map of Mt. Sanitas trails

Creek at the trailhead

Starting to the left; hopefully coming back from the right

Mt. Sanitas history

rock wall

steep stairs

white chalk marks on climbing wall

looking down at Sunshine Canyon road

Boulder to the east

looking down at the return trail

Haystack Mountain and Longmont off in the far hazy distance

Williams Village towers (C.U. dorms), and highway 36 leading off to Denver

power line over Mt. Sanitas

wires going eastward

gnarly

mini-flatirons along the trail

hikers ahead of me… almost to the top

view from the top, looking east

marker at the top

looks like this may have had a USGS plate at one time

which way to go?

on the way down now (which is sometimes harder than going up, because of slipping)

large uprooted tree lying beside the trail

rocks with pits

futuristic-looking house on the way down

gully wash-out along the trail

Sanitas Valley trail closed because of flood wash-out

looking back up at where I’ve been

trail closed

lost stocking cap

Now I’m back down to the trailhead, and my daughter Tiffany was kind enough to give me lunch and a ride. The rest of the photos are walking back east from the 29th St. Mall on Arapahoe.

Flatirons from 29th

I believe that rock formation is Devil’s Thumb (from 29th St. Mall)

SCOTT CARPENTER

Coincidentally, Scott Carpenter passed away just 5 days ago. He was born and raised in Boulder, and was one of the original seven NASA astronauts. The two following pictures are from Scott Carpenter Park in Boulder.

Scott Carpenter wiki

Scott Carpenter Park

Scott Carpenter Park sculpture

BOULDER DINNER THEATRE/ SPAMALOT

Boulder Dinner Theatre has put on consistently high quality shows for as long as I’ve been in Colorado. Jennifer & I saw Spamalot in Las Vegas about 4 years ago, and enjoyed it immensely (with John O’Hurley (Mr. Peterman on Seinfeld) as King Arthur). We are definitely planning on seeing it at BDT. Since I enjoy the Andrews Sisters music, I assume we will try to make it for ‘Sisters of Swing’ as well.

Boulder Dinner Theatre home page

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life youtube