Rocky Mountain Natl Park gives free Ranger-guided snow-shoe tours on the weekends, so we signed up for one last Saturday. The famous High Ridge Road that connects the east side of the park to the west side is closed in the winter, so the two sides are almost like separate parks. Touring the place on a snowy winter day felt like trying to spy on a wilderness in hiding... it's not easy to get to and then it's covered in several feet of snow. All interpretive signs are buried, only a few parking areas are plowed out and the road only goes 10 miles. Trails are only accessible by ski or snowshoe. (No photos, since it was just snow and trees covered in snow). On our tour, Hubbers and I were the token tourists... the rest were locals, which seems rather odd for a national park.
Our guide was a wildlife biologist. I learned that black bears weigh a mere 12oz at birth, and they're born in the middle of mom's winter hibernation so they have time to eat and grow before going out into the bigger world. I also learned about
subnivean habitat - that's where all those little ground animals like mice go in the winter.
On our way to the park, we stopped at
Lonesome Stone Natural Fiber Mill which is just around the corner from us. They have quite a few alpacas plus a few llamas and goats. They breed and raise the animals, as well as process fleece into fiber. And they do absolutely gorgeous hand-dyeing. After meeting the alpacas and watching the machinery work the fiber, I picked out some new yarn to go with the yarn I already have from them. The top greenish yarn is wool in a complimentary colorway as
this hat I made. The brown is alpaca, and I think it goes very well with the yarn of that hat, so I'll use it to make a matching scarf (I'll explain that better once I start the project). The bottom is an odd-lot washable merino sock yarn. I don't know why I always feel compelled to buy sock yarn when I find it on sale.
We got there on Friday, hiked a few miles to set up the tent. Then hiked through the snow on Saturday to the San Mateo Lookout tower. Got lost while looping back... but ended up back at our car early in the afternoon. It started snowing again Saturday evening, and we were just hanging out at a car-camping site, so we eventually decided to just hop in the car and drive home to a warm bed that night, stopping in Socorro for a hot dinner along the way.
However, I have no scarf that does not horribly clash with this hat. But a scarf made of the same yarn seemed a bit much. This stuff is just too bright and fuzzy. Here's where the new naturally-brown alpaca yarn comes in:
The brown was supposed to tone down the orange. Instead, it highlighted all those minor tones of blue and red. At any rate, it screams a bit less loudly. The pattern is the Anthro-inspired scarflet.
Now putting the original hat with this, still looked too bright and fuzzy. Therefore, I needed a new hat to go with the new scarf (how circular). The first hat was too small anyway, so it makes a great ski-helmet-liner. Here's the new hat (pattern: Amanda hat from Sleepy Eyes Knitting).
Now if I just had a pair of gloves made from that brown alpaca, it would be complete. But I used up all of that yarn... maybe next winter.
Of course, I also had to put together a package to send to someone else who completed a goal.
Or maybe I'm just bowing to the snow gods... that gorgeous blue sky really isn't helping the incredibly-shrinking ski season.
That is my first ever charity knit. It's another iPod cozy, using the same B's Buzz pattern as the last one, but with Peaches & Creme yarn. It's much chunkier looking which may be more stylish these days for high-schoolers. It's going to be sold at a high-school fundraiser. It was entirely knit during a drive to and from Copper Mountain. I'll see how many more I can make while riding in the car/bus by the end of the month.
This may not be the ideal shirt to wear with it, but hey, that's the shirt that I packed for that day (see previous post).
