View photo/Greg McKulick The buttes stand in front of Lake Pueblo and the dam.

Veteran explorers find hidden hiking treasures close to home

By GREG McKULICK
Special to the View

I first saw the three intriguingly shaped sandstone buttes during a painfully slow two-mile hike to the Arkansas Point summit in late September of 2006, three and a half months before my double knee replacement surgery.

Kathy and I, along with Murray Golden Retriever and Lucy Chocolate Lab, had begun our walk at the Red Gate entrance to Lake Pueblo State Park on the northern side of Highway 96 approximately one mile west of the main Park entrance. Due to my knee and back problems, this easy walk felt like scaling a Colorado fourteener, but I was fascinated by the view and wondered if I would ever be well enough to explore that rugged desert landscape.

My initial impression of Lake Pueblo State Park was that it was a fine place for boating, fishing, bird watching, casual walks, and more recently, challenging mountain biking. To me, serious and interesting hiking was not synonymous with Lake Pueblo State Park. However, that erroneous preconception would change in early 2008, a year after my knee surgery and seven months after a delicate back operation.

I never forgot my September 2006 view of the buttes, overlooking a Lake Pueblo inlet, and I mistakenly assumed (from a hand-drawn map of the Red Gate trail system printed in The Pueblo Chieftain) that the Pedro Point Trail led to the buttes. Feeling confident about our selected hiking route to the buttes, via a series of descriptively named trails, we pulled into the Red Gate parking area on a rare spring-like mid-winter morning.

A half dozen cheerful mountain bikers greeted Kathy and me as we got out of our car. Before we could leash Murray and Lucy, they bounded out of the car to soak up good-natured attention from the colorfully clad bikers. We’ve never met mountain bikers who weren’t courteous, friendly, and patient with our affectionate dogs. Kathy and I feel a kinship with mountain bikers as they always seem to share our passion for the outdoors.

January 26, 2008 provided the type of weather one dreams about during our blustery Pueblo winters and Kathy and I quickly shed two layers of clothing as we checked out the Quarto Sinko Trail, assuming that this newer trail (not indicated on our trail map) would curve through the rolling high desert and soon join the Pedro Point Trail. With several zigzags in the gentle terrain, the Quarto Sinko avoided the numerous shallow canyons which are the geographic trademarks of the Lake Pueblo State Park landscape.

View photos/Greg McKulick Pedro Point offers a view of an icy, blue Lake Pueblo.

Indeed, while this was a nice path for mountain biking, Kathy and I felt like we were hiking in circles and not close to a trail junction. We then decided to hike cross country through the juniper-dotted desert to intersect the Rock Canyon Trail which more directly headed toward our destination.

A week later, on February 3rd, when hiking out of the shallow Stonehenge Canyon, we met a folksy cowboy who looked like he belonged in an old John Wayne movie. Murray was curious, in his normal easy going manner, about the mounted cowboy and his packhorse, but Lucy was skittish and uncertain, so we leashed both dogs. The cowboy intended to do some trail maintenance, rerouting a portion of the Stonehenge Canyon Trail which had been undercut by water erosion.

Having just walked through the canyon, we knew exactly the trail section he was referring to and shivered when imagining the tragic possibility of a speeding mountain biker having the trail cave-in beneath him.

Despite being described as a desert wasteland by some people, the Lake Pueblo canyons and prairie are home to the rare triploid checkered whiptail lizard and endemic plants such as the golden blazing star, Pueblo goldenweed, round-leaf four O’clock and Arkansas Valley evening primrose which could qualify the State Park for a Natural Area designation.

While the Rock Canyon and Stonehenge Canyon trails are two of our Lake Pueblo favorites, numerous similar canyons and side drainages, with and without trails, demonstrate the powers of erosion in this semi-arid landscape. Rock Canyon twists through layered shale and has intermittent, gradually sloping sandstone streambeds bordered by brush, occasional tamarisk and junipers. Delightful Stonehenge Canyon, a spur off Rock Canyon, is a tribute to the whimsical nature of local trail users who have constructed a miniature replica of southern England’s ancient Stonehenge site, using sandstone boulders and slabs of irregularly shaped shale rocks. Having visited the original Stonehenge in 1994, I chuckled appreciatively at the Lake Pueblo version.

I had assumed that the Pedro Point Trail paralleled the mostly flat South Shore Trail on the opposite side of a narrow drainage. However, we soon realized that the initially flat Waterfall Trail was not the Pedro Point Trail when it took a sharp, westerly uphill dogleg turn through a narrow gorge lined with wind-blown, compacted tumbleweeds, leading up to a seemingly endless flatland of yellow grasses, dried sunflowers, prickly pear and cholla cactus.

Despite the Waterfall Trail gorge’s icy conditions, a trio of fearless, highly skilled mountain bikers waved at us before speeding through the shadowy canyon. Murray and Lucy behaved themselves, thanks to short leashes while the mountain bikers bounced downhill over the rocky and icy track. The four of us then relaxed at a sunny lunch spot near the top of the canyon close to the Pedro Point Trail junction.

Eager to be hiking, I estimated that an easy hour’s walk on the Pedro Point Trail would lead to the buttes we had seen a year and a half earlier. However, it was not to be, as the level, straight trail, after passing a few gorges on our right, puzzled me by veering away from the visible buttes.

The stunning vistas from Pedro Point made our walk very worthwhile. Afternoon shadows darkened the steeply eroded sandstone cliffs above Lake Pueblo’s deep blue shivering waters as waves caressed the shoreline and rattled large patches of floating ice. The distant Wet Mountains stretched far into the western horizon and to the north, the dramatic silhouettes of Cheyenne Mountain, Mount Rosa, and other front range mountains were dominated by Pikes Peak’s massive, snow-capped grandeur.

Despite Pedro Point’s dramatic scenery, I felt frustrated at being nowhere near our original destination - the string of buttes originally viewed from Arkansas Point. How to reach the buttes? Pedro Point and the buttes were separated by more than a mile of inlets, bluffs, and fingers of land cut by numerous small canyons.

Rather than walk entirely on the Pedro Point Trail back to the Waterfall Trail junction on our return to the Red Gate trailhead, Kathy and I opted to hike cross country, over hills and around the inlets and gorges to locate an accessible off-trail route to the buttes. During our meander, Lake Pueblo’s back country shared its wild side with us. While several deer bounced with graceful agility on a steep slope below nearby bluffs, a bald eagle soared high above a flock of noisy seagulls and a lone coyote nonchalantly roamed the ridge leading to the buttes. Eventually we found the approach to this ridge, later crossing a small earthen dam embankment before rejoining the Pedro Point Trail.

Doubting that we would correctly recognize where to leave the Pedro Point Trail on the following weekend’s excursion to the buttes, we constructed a small, discrete cairn by the trail, the significance of it being known only to Kathy and me. I also decided to time our hike from the cairn to the Waterfall Trail junction so that we would know the length of time required for the hike on the Pedro Point Trail before taking off on our cross-country route to the buttes.

Kathy Holen and Murray and Lucy stand in Stonehenge Canyon.

A week later, on Feb, 3, Kathy and I, along with Murray and Lucy, left the Red Gate trailhead at 10 a.m. on the Rock Canyon Trail, soon switching to the Stonehenge Canyon trail and a short connecting walk on the South Shore Trail to the Waterfall Trail up to the Pedro Point junction.

High clouds and filtered sunlight softened the distant vistas and while the temperature remained unseasonably warm, the day still was not as pleasant as the previous weekend. However, all four of us were in good spirits and eager to reach our destination. Kathy and I grinned at each other and the dogs’ tails were in a non-stop wagging mode.

We knew that the hike to our marker cairn from the Waterfall-Pedro Point trail junction would take between 15 and 20 minutes and easily located it. One hour later, after crossing the earthen dam and traversing the undulating, sparsely vegetated ridge, we approached the first butte, rising like a huge rectangular table bordered by rimrock.

While the dogs, using their four-wheel drive, quickly scampered to the neck of land connecting the butte to our approach ridge, Kathy and I descended more slowly and safely on the loose scree. After quickly locating a break in the rimrock, we used extreme caution in ascending a short, steep slope of unstable shale and gravel to the butte’s flat summit.

Despite different types of terrain, geology, and vegetation, the butte’s summit view, framed by the lake, of the next two buttes felt more like Utah’s Lake Powell than our backyard Lake Pueblo State Park. We treated ourselves to a leisurely lunch break and played with Murray and Lucy while soaking in a diverse panorama of oddly shaped buttes, smooth lake waters, several small ravines, sprawling mountain ranges, and a soft gray sky.

After descending from the butte, we began the most fascinating portion of our hike by going up scrubby hillsides and slowly walking around the rimrock bases of the second and third buttes, which seemed impossible to climb. Each of these three misshapen buttes was the remainder of a once higher landscape whose softer sediments had been relentlessly eroded by the timeless forces of nature.

Long, with a very thin wall where a crack had become a small arch, the second butte contained numerous cannon ball-sized concretions, securely wedged into its cliffs, above crumbly layers of rock. Just as fascinating, the chimney-shaped third butte provided an exciting discovery when I found a square rock with one side being covered with multi-shaped quartz crystals.

Just as the lines and wrinkles on an elderly person’s face can indicate their personal history, the cracks, bulges, and erosion on the walls of the three buttes reveal their geologic story. Fossils in the vicinity of the buttes, bluffs and canyons also provide a wealth of information about life in the Lake Pueblo area millions of years ago.

View photo/Greg McKulic Kathy Holen stands under the long, narrow second butte.

The three buttes had indeed been a treasure house of wonder, far exceeding our expectations. These seemingly remote, off-trail state park lands felt truly wild and untouched by human presence.

After we descended to the shoreline, cluttered with rocks and lined with tall grass and sun-bleached logs, Murray and Lucy frolicked in the frigid water while Kathy and I quietly enjoyed our solitude in Lake Pueblo’s simple beauty.

Satisfied, we slowly began our return hike to the Red Gate trailhead.

* Note: For more information on Lake Pueblo State Park, call 561-9320 or write to Lake Pueblo State Park, 640 Reservoir Road, Pueblo, CO 81005.

There is no entrance fee at the Red Gate trailhead, nor is there an information board or maps of the trail system.

Pueblo West resident Greg McKulick has an extensive hiking resume and regularly shares his tales with View readers.

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