Watershed!

It’s possible visitors appreciate the amazingly tasty water of Fort Collins more than those of us who live here do, but every now and then, when you’ve worked up a powerful thirst in one way or another, don’t you just dig on a glass of water straight from the tap?  We are grateful for it every single day.  (It’s not too shabby brewed into beer, either, as 16 breweries and counting -- and a bunch of us who enjoy their product -- can attest.)

If you’re a resident of FoCo, you can sign up for a free, full-day guided tour of the Poudre River watershed.  The City of Fort Collins Utilities group runs 2 of these tours each summer.  (The second one for this summer is currently full, but if you follow Utilities on Facebook, you’ll see the announcement for signups next spring and we vote you go!)

TimCo and I went yesterday, and it was startlingly beautiful and educational.  Presenters were excellent – in addition to having it brought home that we're glad typhoid outbreaks are less common now than in days of yore, we learned a lot about the history of settlement and water usage in the Poudre Canyon, how the health of rivers is measured and monitored, and why we are so lucky to have this close-to-pristine water source (this was a point reiterated by every presenter). 

Here’s the day in photos.

Lucas Mouttet started us off with a quick lecture.  Happily, no test.

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Then we got in a giant comfy coach and headed up to Overland Trail Road, passing the original Fort Collins waterworks building.

Journeyed up the canyon along this beautiful, wild thing while hearing from Clyde about the history of water use/rights/work on the Cache la Poudre River.

Arrived here:

...and were greeted by this guy:

(We might have taken a few photos of him:)

(...and of ourselves:)

There were cool and informative mini-lectures (by water, bug, and tree specialists Clyde, Alicia, and Hallie -- I'm pretty sure they were things like irrigation management and infrastructure and cold-water macroinvertebrate and sub-alpine forestry experts, but hopefully "water, bug & tree specialists" works when reviewing over a #freshtastycraftbeer).

We explored these topics:

I was slightly hung-up on the bounty of flowers in the natural garden up there, including the amazing Colorado state flower, the Rocky Mountain Columbine.

And, hey, does anyone know what these are?

Also admired this perfect tree, which I thought was our state tree (Blue Spruce) but I'm pretty sure the evergreen expert would disagree, given that apparently they don't grow up there.  It's beautiful, at any rate.

Let's just take a moment and be glad we are not living on Cameron Pass when the snow is being measured against this post, shall we?

We broke for lunch (provided by the City group).  Here was our view of runoff in action.  Yeah, yeah, Ma Nature, whatcha' got for me today?

...and had lunch to this soundtrack.  Not bad.

I ate sitting next to this thing, which I'm pretty sure is producing a grain that can be malted.  Just saying.

We boarded the bus again and got another couple o' pieces o' education (on stormwater and water quality) from Chris & Jill & then arrived at the Gateway Natural Area.  Folks split up and explored a bit (we walked took a pic of some of Greeley's water in a very non-natural formation:)

On the way past Mishawaka, we saw these guys from Mountain Whitewater Descents.  [Shameless commercial plug:  we sure hope they are stopping for a #PicnicRockPaleAle at Paddler's Pub when they're done on the river!]

Amen to a fantastic clean water source, and to public lands which we can all explore (with care, please! We're all drinking that stuff!)!

(Big thanks to the City of Fort Collins Utilities team -- and particularly to our emcee, Lucas, for a great day!)