Today Miss P and I were on a mission, to find and photograph some hoodoos.   What is a hoodoo?   One use of the word is a synonym for voodoo, but what I’m talking about is a column of rock, where the softer rock has eroded leaving a little (or big) hat of harder rock on the top.   It sort of looks like a person.

Why?  Well they are the sort of thing one runs into when one is out walking.   But when you are looking for them, they suddenly disappear.    It was tremendously windy today, so we just couldn’t get to one spot, but we did come across a few.

These ones are near the house and we spotted them on a walk on Sunday. (Note to self: Do not wear Birkenstocks when out hiking).

This puny one barely qualifies, but it is technically a hoodoo.

These ones are pretty puny too.

These ones are more respectable examples, located over by Pulpit Rock.   There are even some in a neighbor’s back yard, but none in mine.

This is sort of a hoodoo, but it doesn’t have a hat.

A related thing is a balanced rock, which is not formed in the same way.   We have a premier example right in a city park, which is formed by erosion after the uplift of the mountain.

This is extremely popular with tourists who drive up, snap a photo, and then go on to next tourist thing.

Because the mountain sits to the west of town, the sun goes down pretty early in the winter.  But we sometimes get fabulous skies because the sun is still shining on the clouds.  The sky lights up in golden splendor until the sun sinks a little lower into darkness.

I grew up in St. Louis, which is essentially a flat prairie town where two rivers meet, the Mississippi and the Missouri.   It’s the higher ground, the bit on the other side in Illinois floods frequently.  As far as we know, the Illinois side was the site of a great native city, Cahokia that was abandoned long before European contact.   St. Louis was established as a fur trading outpost and grew into a large city of brick houses and prosperity.

Of course that is the distant past, in my past it has a different story.   I remember it as a place that is hot in the summer and cold, cold, cold in the winter.   The winters are full of grey skies, the clouds hang so low that it looks like you could reach up and touch them, or bump your head on them if you are not careful.   In contrast, the beautiful skies and wide open spaces are part of why I love Colorado and New Mexico.

In the far distance is Spanish Peaks, which is about 120 miles away.   the bluer mountains are the Wet Mountains, about 50 miles away.

Cheyenne Mountain is in the foreground, it is the site of NORAD, a (not-so-secret) military installation that extends for a mile inside the mountain.

A different view of the Peak.

The bump on the horizon to the north is Castle Rock.   It doesn’t look very impressive in this view as there is a pass (high point) between here and there.   It’s about 45 miles away.  All of these pictures were taken on one of the many trails that run throughout the city.   Anyone can enjoy these spectacular vistas.

I live in an area that is a mix of rural and urban.   I live in a house with natural landscaping (I only have a tiny lawn, the rest just grows naturally).  There is an open space (area with no houses) nearby, and it connects along the creek to the mountains so the deer can wander through the neighborhood.   The most prominent feature of this open space is called Pulpit Rock.

I took this picture one day when I was out walking Miss Dog.

It’s a rather large rock outcropping, you can see it from the freeway when you’re driving from the north, and it is clearly visible from the south part of town as well.

(Hint:  It’s that white blob in the middle of the picture).

It’s also quite near the local university, and it it popular for students to climb up, which they do often as an alternative to studying.   It’s part of my landscape and I navigate by it.

The neighbors swear that a mountain lion has a den back in this valley, but I have never seen it. (And I hope I don’t.)

Today I would like to share my favorite mountain with you.   This picture was taken from my front porch this morning.   In a person that you love, the best quality is that they are unchanging, the essential thing that you love about them stays the same.  Ah, but when you love a mountain, the best quality is that it constantly changes.   One time it is dark and mysterious, sometimes it is snow covered,  it can be ablaze with golden aspens, sometimes it disappears.  It always offers up something new.

I have heard rumors that it is also quite beautiful as the sunrise breaks over the face of the mountain, with light gradually moving from the peak down to the base, but I am unable to vouch for this as I have never seen it 😉

Fun facts:  It was called Long Mountain by the Arapahoe,  El Capitan by the Spanish and it’s current name was give by an American explorer in 1806.   The elevation at the summit is 14,115 feet above sea level.   Gold was discovered on the back of the mountain in 1893, the same year “America the Beautiful” was written after a trip to the summit.   There is a cog railroad ($36/person) or a road ($12/person) to the top and you can see Kansas.   There is an annual foot race and car race to the top (they do not run at the same time), and fireworks on New Years’ Eve (set off by crazy men who hike to the top).