I said Corona Pass, not pass the Corona!

Huffygirl and I decided Colorado was a good place to spend a week celebrating our country’s independence. It was also the week following our wedding and we were told the moon would look like honey. We looked and looked and it appeared more like a thin slice of moon pie than honey. Anyway, Fraser, Colorado became our home base for a few days and today, July 4th, we were headed to Corona Lake, near the top of Rollins Pass. We had explored some mountain biking paths earlier in the week and had visited the wildlife and the glaciers in Rocky Mountain National Park and now wanted to hike to a little backcountry lake for a relaxed day. The trail description stated, “Corona Lake is a 2 mile out and back trail located near Nederland, Colorado and is good for all skill levels.” There were other words like beautiful and historic in the description as well, but I latched on to the words, “good for all skill levels.” That was MY kind of trail!! Even though I trip over rocks a lot and get really tired, I have been walking for so dang long (almost 50 years!), that I felt I had to be on the upper end of the skill level scale.

Huffygirl called from the other room, “I have the first aid kit, dear. All set to go!” This was one of 7 first aid kits we received as wedding gifts. I have the best friends ever!

We allotted ourselves a whole afternoon since it was a pretty good drive into the mountains to get to the trailhead and we brought along some light raingear since it was July 4^th and it always rains on Independence Day. One of the first challenges was to find the dirt road that would take us to the Corona Lake trail. We used a little tourist map of Winter Park and got real close, I mean real close, but couldn’t quite get there on our initial attempts. We found a small road that we thought was right, and tried following some mountain bikers who seemed to be headed in the right direction. After a while, Huffygirl thought we might miss the evening fireworks at that pace so we gave up on them. We asked a local who told us the road was too rough and narrow and steep for my little Honda Civic and that he couldn’t tell us due to liability concerns. He looked straight at my passenger and said in a very deliberate and raspy voice, “A man’s got to know his limitations, Ma’am. If he has the brains to, I reckon.” Then he wished her good luck and he and his Gran Torino disappeared in a cloud of dust.

After a couple of failed attempts, we finally found ourselves on the proper road and seemed to be headed into the right direction. I was a little worried about the sign that said 4X4 vehicles only because I assume it meant 4 wheels and 4 passengers and we only had the 2 of us… The road itself was pretty rough and curvy, and we found ourselves adding lots of turns in the attempt to avoid rocks and potholes and small canyons. The Civic has a full 3 inches of clearance with the tires fully filled so I was sure we’d be fine. There were 2 spots where I got out and had to figure out a path through some obstacles. Huffygirl drove while I directed. She is always so good about noticing the cool sights… “Oh, at this angle, I can see straight to the bottom of this ravine!! And Sweetie, the drinks spilled from the drink holders again… ”

At some point, a big Jeep passed us with a guy and a girl – I think they were on a date. I’m pretty sure we could hear a female voice sharing, “I thought you told me this was a Jeep road that only big, tough, cool Jeeps could drive up?! I thought you said you would take me on a road that only a real man could handle??!! THAT WAS A CIVIC WITH 2 INCHES OF CLEARANCE! And that guy was clearly NOT a real man!” I was about to clarify that we had 3 inches of clearance but they bounced over a ledge in the road and were gone…

We rounded one corner and came upon an old railroad trestle bridge and decided we had to hike to it. It was raining pretty hard at this point and the hike to the railroad bridge was pretty steep, but we felt we had to see this piece of history up close. After slipping and scratching and digging, I finally reached the top where Huffygirl was patiently waiting. Standing next to a nice road, she sweetly asked, “Is this the same road we were already on?”

“No way”, I told her. It was clear that the little speck down below that was our car was on a very different road than the one that went right by this railroad bridge. And I’m sure the guy who drove by in the big truck who told us our windows were down was talking about a different champagne-colored Honda. On a completely different road.

The trestle bridge was pretty awesome. I squeaked past the big red and black “Danger” sign (they put it in an awkward place that really made it hard to get around) and scrambled onto the remains of the bridge and pretended I was a train (“Choo, choo!!”) and admired the pretty view. There were plenty of creaks and groans from the bridge (everyone’s a weight critic) and Huffygirl took some pictures and asked if we should maybe go roll our windows up. So we headed back down, traversing the small stream and waterfalls that had formed in the steep trail and got back to the car much faster that we had gotten to the bridge. We opened the doors to let out some water, rolled up the windows, and decided we’d better head back down the road before we slipped off the side.

The way down was much faster as we were generally able to just float along with the small uprooted trees and boulders that were being washed downhill. In spite of the rain, the mountains and squirrels and lakes and glimpses of the green valley below made this a spectacular drive. I was thinking this was one of the prettiest roads I had been on when Huffygirl brought me back to the present…

“Paddle, Huffyman, paddle!”