Day 3 - Arapaho National Forest - Cascade Falls

On our third full day in the park, we hiked in the Arapaho National Forest (Indian Peaks Wilderness). It's a very beautiful area, and pretty devoid of people. I actually didn't take very many photos that day, not because the hike was terribly difficult (although it definitely did have its moments), but because I was far too busy freaking out about all the bears that I knew were hiding in the forest, waiting to jump out at me.

This may come as a surprise, but I have a few phobias. (This is where you should politely feign surprise.) Bears tend to rank pretty high on that list of phobias when I'm in bear country. Aaron was so happy to be in the mountains he didn't even complain about my proactive bear warning system, which included singing "99 bottles of beer on the wall" all the way down to 30-something bottles of beer, and whistling a little tune over and over on the emergency whistle (not terribly loudly, lest you think I'm a complete nature jerk).

The morning before we headed out to Arapaho, I was reading an outdoor magazine that had been lying around the condo. There was an article that discussed how important it is to not wear a lot of strong smelling personal products before heading for a wilderness hike, because it would surely warn the animals (which have keen senses of smell, of course) that you're headed their way, causing them to avoid you-- the wilderness seeker. The article went on to recommend abstaining from showers to that same end. This seemed like perfect common sense for someone who might want to actually encounter, say, a bear. Therefore, I took a shower with triple soap, layered on multiple smelly shampoos and conditioners, and even made sure to wear some hair spray.

Just to be clear, I completely attribute my lack of bear incidents on this trip to daily showering, extraordinarily high levels of personal hygiene, and lots of annoying whistling.

(I would also like to note that the evening after this invisible bear-infested hike, I downloaded a peer-reviewed journal article concerning the effectiveness of various bear repellents, including annoying whistles. They were not found to be very effective. However, I think my scientific study of this phenomenon entirely disproves their finding.)

It also turns out that yellow-bellied marmots are extremely attracted to strong hair spray and meticulous personal hygiene, because we saw three. They were pretty nifty... they looked like a cross between a woodchuck and a badger. In fact, at first, I was convinced they were badgers (having never actually seen a badger, this seemed very reasonable). I had to do some impromptu googling that evening before we figured out what the heck they really were. Here are a couple of pictures:

Here are a few more photos from the day's hike. ...If you look carefully, I'm sure you can see the small army of bears that stalked us through the woods.