Clear Creek Rambles: Lakes, Ruins, Critters, and More

Nov. 5th

On November 5th Joan and I drove down to Clear Creek Metro Park to explore the newly opened extension of the Lake Emily trail, which took us to the ruins of the Benua family house, Green Mansions. (There had not been any publicly open trails on the south side of Clear Creek until this summer.)

Click on the image to enlarge.

Directly across the road from the parking area is the Written Rock, which holds 19th and 20th Century graffiti chiseled into the sandstone.

A closeup.

The Lake Trail first crosses Clear Creek on an old concrete ford/bridge, which is sometimes flooded out.

The path then rises gradually until a final climb to the top of the earthen dam that formed Lake Emily.

Don't try to walk on the ice ...

A sunlit tree at the far end of the dam.

From here Joan and I were walking on trail new to us. At the junction we took the 0.4 mile spur to the ruins of "Green Mansions," built in the 1960s by the Benua family.

Drawing closer.

The sign Joan is reading in the above photo; sorry for the clipped left edge!

The view from inside.

After admiring the location and the Benua family's protection of this land, Joan and I returned to the loop, shuffling and crunching through the fallen leaves. Then Joan spotted ...

a young meadow vole, here in the woods. We halted. It seemed unafraid of us, and continued to search through the leaf litter for something to eat.

After completing the loop, Joan and I drove on to the Barnebey Day Use area, and walked the short Tulip and Lake trail loops.

We received a big surprise when the Lake loop took us down to the level of Lake Ramona. There was a new beaver dam, upstream of the original dam! It looked fresh, and stretched wider than the lower dam.

The old dam has sprouted a carpet of greenery.

"Busy as a beaver" is the saying, and it applies here. Lake Ramona itself was at a low ebb.

Our two walks this day were rewarding and surprised us more than once.

December 2nd

Joan and I returned on December 2nd to hike the Hemlock and Cemetery Ridge trails. We had chosen a day with a frost-free morning. On the way from the parking area to the Hemlock trailhead we checked out the extensive repairs at a bend in Clear Creek. The waters had been eating away the bank, threatening the road and trail.

It is clear that the park has had difficulty with visitors bringing dogs into this nature preserve.

Note one succinct line, "Pets Prohibited," in the original trail sign, right. Then a small stand-alone sign was added, left. That wasn't enough! Now there is an additional large sign, left, shouted: no dogs allowed.

We soon realized that crane-fly orchid leaves seemed to be along every trail, still green above and purple below. The leaves of Putty-root orchids, which bloom in the late spring, were more numerous than before at their usual haunt on the Hemlock trail.

Cemetery Ridge was more interesting than the green tunnel it transforms into when the leaves are out. We could see through to other ridges, and deep into the valleys. Also, the dead leaves made a fascinating but easy to overlook layered patchwork of shapes and colors. This tiny plant reached up through the ground litter. Can anybody identify it? If so, leave a comment!

Despite a few rain sprinkles, our four hours on the trail in December were well worthwhile.