Arkansas Headwaters – In A Colorado Minute (Week 204) from Luci Westphal on Vimeo.
The Arkansas River actually begins its journey in Colorado, where its waters are derived from the Rocky Mountains snowpack.
A good section around the early part, or headwaters, of the Arkansas
River have been designated as a Colorado State Park called Arkansas
Headwaters State Park.
Conveniently, because I purchased a year-pass for Lory State Park near Fort Collins, we’re able to get in for free at all 42 Colorado State Parks. So on our drive back from a road trip during Week 200,
we stopped at a section of the river that is one of the most popular
river boating (whitewater rafting, etc.) areas in the United States –
and great for trout fishing, as well. I really didn’t expect it to be
that beautiful. Nor did I plan on shooting a weekly video about this
place, so I didn’t even take the tripod out of the car – hence some
shaky footage and a few still photos, with which I replaced the same
images as video at the very last minute before uploading.
We were
so taken by how gorgeous this area was that we spent most of the
afternoon hiking around and then basking in the sun on the top of a
small peak just looking around at the wonderful vista. A classic Happy
Place.
We had parked the car at the Hecla camp grounds and, before
we left, picked our two favorite spots with views of the river to pitch
our tent as soon as it gets warm. I can’t wait! And I’m pretty sure
I’ll show you a video of what this place looks like in the summer in a
few months…
Also, I want to figure out which train line runs along the river here. I suspect it’s the Royal Gorge Route
– but it might just be regular Amtrak line – if it’s even a track for
people transportation. One of my top priorities this spring/summer is to
get on one of the Rocky Mountains trains and share a video of that trip
with you!
The lovely song in this video is the instrumental version of “Chainsaw” by Josh Woodward, who makes hundreds of his songs available through a Creative Commons license. How awesome is that?
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| Arkansas Headwaters, Colorado Hecla Campsite |