A brief visit to Gothic, Colorado

The town of Gothic from Robyn's cabin















Judd's Falls

















Robyn at the over look at Judd's falls


We got back last night. It was a good, though short
trip. Gothic is an interesting place and Robyn has
her work cut out for her. She is really frustrated
with the band-aid approach to maintenance. It'll be
interesting to see whether she is able to convince
the administration to go her route or continue with
the old ways. The person who had her job last year
got so frustrated that she quit doing anything and
then eventually left. Nothing was put away nor
organized for the winter or this spring. It was
quite a challenge to snow shoe into her job site in
early May. The water system had been wiped out by
an avalanche and the dining building roof had collapsed
among a couple of the problems. The snow was hip deep
and no vehicles were running so all tools had to be
hand carried to various sites. But, the first arrivals
came June 1st on schedule and the place was more or
less ready for them.

She has made friends with some of the researchers
and they all seem to like and respect her.

The Sunday before we got there she had, with two
others, climbed one of the nearby peaks.

We scouted out the campground while we were there.
It is Forest Service, free and no services. We
picked two adjacent sites and if/when we can
pick a time when Carl and family can join us
there, Robyn will park a vehicle at the site to
reserve it. The upper of the two sites we
figured Ariel would love. The road to the
lower is better for the pickup. And the upper
has a great view of a working beaver pond and
beaver house. Ariel will love it. If she
gets up early she'll be able to see beavers for
sure.

The lower doesn't have as good a view of the
beaver pond, but it is very nice.

Our road is going to be torn up July 7-10. The
culvert by Vernon's house is collapsing as is
the road. I hope we'll be able to avoid going
to town those days, but we'll probably park a
car down below just in case so we don't have
to drive to Gold Hill to get to Boulder.