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Spanish Peaks, Colorado.

Part 13. The Spanish Peaks

East from Sangre de Cristo Mountains (one of the main ranges in Southern Rockies) are Spanish Peaks, two somewhat isolated mountains rising above the Great Plains.
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Culebra, Spanish, and Tento Peaks from Wheeler Peak, New Mexico.
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Climbing Western Spanish Peak.
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Vew from the Peaks towards the East.
Looking east from the summits of the Peaks, you can see the Plains all the way to Oklahoma. To the west are the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and New Mexico.
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Vew from the Peaks towards the West.
insect
These large alpine grasshoppers
feed on bighorn sheep dung.
flowers
"Old man of the mountain" (Hymenoxys grandiflora),
has flowers up to 12 cm/4.5' wide.
bird
Willamson's sapsucker (Sphyrapicus
thyroideus
), a mountain woodpecker.
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These long granite walls are dykes - stripes of solidified lava
that had once filled cracks in the Earth's crust.
It's a good place to study the geology, flora and fauna of the Colorado Rockies. view
Enclosed valleys are called parks in Colorado, from the
hunters' term "deer park" - a deer wintering area.
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Higher elevations of the Peaks have some of the best alpine meadows
in the Rocky Mountains.
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West Spanish Peak (4,100 m/13,626') is the taller and the more
accessible of the two - it takes only 3-4 hours to climb.
flower
Explorer's gentian (G. calycosa).
Of all the beautiful flowers growing on alpine meadows, gentians (Gentiana) are my personal favorites. No other flower genus has so many wonderful variations of blue color. Gentians occur in all mountains, meadows, tundras, and unploughed grasslands of the Northern Hemisphere; the Rockies have their fair share. flower
Explorer's gentian (G. calycosa).
flower flower
Fall colors of alpine tundras: left - Rose Crown (Sedum (Rhodiola) rhodanthum), right - King's Crown (S. (R.) rosea).
pika
American pika (Ochotona princeps).
pika High elevation species such as pikas and marmots are easy to see here. pika pika
American pika (Ochotona princeps).
pika pika
pika
American pika.
Relatives of rabbits and hares, American pikas live in talus slopes of Western mountains. They are most interesting to watch in the fall, when they are busy gathering grass in tiny haystacks for winter. pika
American pika.
marmot marmot
Yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota ochrogaster).
marmot
Baby marmot.
Yellow-bellied marmots, too, look their best in late summer and early fall, when they fatten up for the hibernation and grow thick winter coats. Even juveniles play less and feed more at that time. marmot
Baby marmot.
marmot marmot marmot marmot
Grooming marmot.
bighorn
Bighorn (Ovis canadensis).
A small number of bighorn sheep inhabit the most remote, rocky slopes of the Peaks. Unlike in many other parts of the Rockies, here they are shy and difficult to see. They often graze together with marmots for extra safety: marmots have better eyesight, while bighorns have more acute hearing and sense of smell. herd
Bighorns and a marmot.
chipmunks chipmunks chipmunks
Least chipmunks (Tamias minimus).
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Sangre de Cristo Mountains from the Spanish Peaks.
As I was climbing the West Peak, the weather began to change.
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Sangre de Cristo Mountains from the Spanish Peaks.
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hail
Hail in the forest.
A sudden thunderstorm brought some rain, hail, and then snow, but I kept climbing and got to see this beautiful rainbow from the summit. rainbow
Summit view.
rabbit
Mountain cottontais (Sylvilagus nuttallii) are
very common in the forests of the Peaks.
rabbit
At sunrise, these rabbits can be seen
sunbathing after a cold night.
rabbit
Near timberline they are joined by snowshoe
hares (Lepus americanus).
view The thunderstorm was over in an hour, and I got back to the forest in time to see this beautiful sunset.

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Sunset at Spanish Peaks (colors NOT artificially enhanced).
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Aerial view of the Peaks in March.
In winter and spring, snowclad summits of the Peaks are visible from the Plains up to 200 km eastward. view
Aerial view of the Peaks in March.
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Part 14. The Northern Rockies
Back to Part 12

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