WSP00748

• File Number: 7630.225
• Description: Wild and Scenic-Elk River
• State: CO
• Date: 1/1/3000
• Title: Elk WSR Study-Background Information-Visit to the Elk
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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Visit to the Elk

Airp;ane ride--yel1ow tundra, gray rock, cirques, tarnS. Spill of gold

On the ridges; aspen turning; serrated ranks of spruce/fir below. Water

emerald in tarns, silver threads in skeinds draped on the rock. Geometry

below elark. Brownness of grass in open parks.

Drive to middle fork; drumlines near Himman park, etc. Blocky Bo,

Canyon, ledgy falls and steep gradient; pellucid water. Walk ot confluence

Gold Creek andC';:L,,, Creek, source of the Elk MF, Sheep tracks, shit

of elkand deer. Spurce/fir, alder by the creek, nearby aspenparks; good

wter. Confluence area morainal unsorted debris.

Camp at seedhouse.. Drive to North Fork, ca 5 miles u; creek. Open

meadows, turning aspen borders, jogs into the thick timber. Out at Diamond

Park (private inholding ca 320 acres with unused water right); road's end.

Large (80 ft?) drumlines upper end of Da mond park. Trail up through

trees, past reflecting silted beaver pond. Re;atrively narrow glaciate

valley, flat meanders, all the bed boulders submereged in green. Up to

trail ca 3 mi confluence leading t~x over diV~1 to Encampment (WF?), Unim-

proved beyond some 2 mi. Ye1110w meadows, very soggy; constant water.

Kingscrown, elephanthead, woods boggy, no differentiation creeks and forest;

swamps, tangles of driftwood. Ocassional meadows. Many meadows past the

dual falls, Cleft runningnortheast, perhaps iE~xiRRX 100 feet deep. From

south side, 100 yds apart, spill dual falls, jackstraw drift rammed in theif

clefts, bordering the impact pools, spray. Silver threads among the gloom.

Very large spruce fir looming up from the base of the ax gorge, overtopppng it.

Spring shakes the earth here.

Into thehigh meadows for lunch and quit; gold panning. Epidote. Much

elk shit; ground cover slender-stemmed, green blobbed fraxinia. Dog leg on

the basin, lunch at center; narrow; o'~ide-orange bedd to creek, glance up

to the fountain/source tarn with ledge-c1uste~ed fir; stunted gold aspen

up the wall and military ranks of fir.