Monthly Archives: August 2023

Flat Tops Wilderness – High Elevation Prairie Ecology 2023

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The Flat Tops Wilderness in northwest Colorado is flat and boring and no one should go there.

At least, that seems to be its reputation, given the scarcity of people during my backpacking trip last week. That was nice in terms of my desire for solitude, but it’s a shame more people don’t take advantage of this huge and gorgeous landscape.

Afternoon rainstorms came through each day. If you look really closely, you can just barely see my gray tent hidden beneath the trees near the enter of the bottom of the photo (to the right of the patch of snow).

In 2022, my son Daniel and I tested out the Flat Tops Wilderness Area with a short backpacking trip that started at Trapper’s Lake and let us explore that area. This year, I went by myself and started further east at Stillwater Reservoir. It was fantastic.

If you’re interested, I started at Stillwater Reservoir and hiked up to the plateau on Bear River Trail. I then followed Chinese Wall trail south for a while before heading off trail to the west toward a few small lakes I’d found on Google Earth that looked like they’d provide a great place to camp. I was right – it was a terrific spot. I camped there two nights and then hiked back out. During the days, I explored the area with my camera, not going too far because of the frequent thunderstorm activity.

Much of the Flat Tops Wilderness is relatively flat grassland, which makes it pleasant and easy to wander around in. It also means you can see storms coming and see the sun relatively soon after sunrise and before sunset.

My goal was an easy trip that gave me plenty of time to wander. I wanted to backpack just far enough to find a good campsite and use that as a hub for day hiking. That worked out really well.

Only two things got in my way. One was the near-constant threat of thunderstorms that made me a little nervous to get too far from camp, especially up on the high flat (exposed) ground between a lot of the places I wanted to explore. I still got to see a lot, but there were a couple spots I’ll have to hit on future trips. That’s fine.

The second was my own fault, which was that I did a poor job of acclimating to the altitude. I camped one night near Stillwater Reservoir before heading out on my trip. The reservoir is at about 10,000 feet, which is a lot of feet higher in elevation than Aurora, Nebraska (1,800 feet). My backpacking campsite was even highat about 11,300 feet… I figured I’d be uncomfortable for the first day or two, as has happened before, but my symptoms never did clear up and I actually cut my trip short by a day as a result. I’ll be smarter next time.

I’m pretty sure this is an arctic blue butterfly (Agriades glandon), which I saw pretty often through my trip – almost always on this same flower, which I believe is an aster of some kind, but I’m not willing to guess more specifically.
Another shot of an arctic blue butterfly – this time through a fisheye lens.
I also saw a lot of mosquitos, though they weren’t too bad during the middle of the day, especially when I wasn’t right next to lakes (you know, like where my tent was…)

For someone who loves the aesthetics of wide open plains, the Flat Tops Wilderness is a pretty perfect mountain vacation destination. Being on a high elevation plateau full of grasslands eliminates the claustrophobia I feel when surrounded by tall mountains and trees. I could see storms coming from miles away and didn’t have to wait hours for the sun to climb over high peaks before it hit me in the morning.

At the same time, there is plenty of topography to create spectacular views. The plateau has lots of embedded peaks and ridges to climb and countless little lakes and streams to explore. Once up on the plateau, though, traveling between those features is really easy – and navigation is aided by the fact that you can see lots of landmarks the whole time you hike.

The Flat Tops has a lot of embedded ridges and peaks that provide a great view of the surrounding area. This photo shows the area near Surprise Lake (which is out of view toward the upper left of the image).
Elephant’s head (Pedicularis groenlandica) grows commonly along streams and in other wet areas.
I think this is white marsh marigold (Caltha leptosepala), which I saw along seeps, streams, and wet meadows.
Distant rain and mountains to the east of my campsite.

Since I only carried my backpack 7 miles in and 7 miles out, I figured I could pack a little heavier than I otherwise would. I didn’t bring a stove and used Kim’s very lightweight one-person tent (uses hiking poles for support). Because of that, I gave myself permission to bring quite a bit of camera gear. I didn’t weigh my pack because I knew the result would be well above the recommendations of people who know about such things (like Kim).

On the other hand, photography and a couple books (for rainy periods) were the two primary objectives for my trip. It was a vacation, after all. I didn’t want to spend all my time trudging along trails with a big pack. I wanted to scramble up ridges with a camera and wait patiently for marmots and butterflies to pose for photos. I wanted to take afternoon naps, if I felt like it. I wanted to watch hundreds of salamanders hanging out in the shallows of an alpine lake. …Ok, I hadn’t anticipated that last one, but was glad for the opportunity! (More on that in a future post.)

Colorado blue columbine (Aquilegia coerulea) on a ridge above my campsite.
This female wolf spider (carrying her egg sac – barely visible under her thorax) was one of many spiders and other invertebrates clambering about in the rocks along the banks of alpine lakes.
I always admire plants that grow in seemingly impossible substrate – such as the tiny crack in this rock face. I think this is a kind of fleabane (Erigeron sp.)
American bistort (Bistorta bistortoides) growing out of the crack in a large rock near my camp.

I didn’t see any really big wildlife species, but that didn’t bother me. There were plenty of marmots and pika, along with a fox that played peek-a-boo with me for a while from the top of a ridge. Birds sang all around me, including some I knew and some I didn’t. Most importantly, I saw multitudes of bees, flies, butterflies, spiders, and other invertebrates and had plenty of time to photograph them (in-between thunderstorms).

This is one of many yellow-bellied marmots I saw this year. A couple were on the ridge above my campsite and posed for photos if I was patient enough to wait for them. (I didn’t bother any of them for very long.)
This was one of at least two bumble bee species I saw (I don’t know the species). It was feeding on a thistle while I was waiting for a marmot to reappear.
This pika also appeared to scold me while I was waiting for a marmot to pop back into view.
There were a lot of patches of snow still hanging around this year, including this one. There was more in early August this year than in mid-July last year. I’m guessing that was related to heavy snows over the winter.
This patch of yellow flowers was growing in a fairly wet area below some melting snow near my campsite. I think they’re in the Arnica genus?
This reddish-colored ridge was visible from my campsite and reflected nicely in one of the small lakes nearby. This photo was taken in the evening with indirect and subdued lighting.
Here’s the same ridge and the same lake, photographed the following morning in direct light.
One of many hover flies helping to pollinate the many flowers around.
Here’s another hover fly on another flower.

The American West has no shortage of great public land to explore, and I hope to keep finding new spots. The Flat Tops, though, is a place I will definitely return to in the future. Maybe I’ll run into you there sometime. If so, I’ll probably be lying prone trying to photograph an arctic blue butterfly or something when you hike past, so please don’t step on me.

On my last morning, the skies provided some terrific clouds for reflection photos in the lakes near my campsite. They also helped dry out my tent a little before I packed it up.
Here are some more columbine flowers along the edge of a lake.