Macey Lakes - "Pictures at an Exhibition"

Trip Report -September 29th, 1997

By Arthur Vyn Boennighausen

This is a long, but not strenuous hike of about fifteen miles round trip. We set a brisk pace that included many stops for photography. It took us nine hours to make the round trip. This outing emphasized that each valley of the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness is different and has it's own special appeal. In other words, if you have seen one or two parts of the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness, you have not Seen all there is to See.

Start at the trailhead near the Horn Creek Christian Conference center. Parking for ten cars with a restroom at the trailhead. Begin the outing by taking the trail that goes due West from the restroom until you reach the Rainbow Trail which is clearly marked with signage. Go South on the Rainbow trail for about two miles to start the outing crossing a footbridge over Stanton Creek until you come to Macey Creek. From this intersection; which is clearly marked with signage you turn West and stay on the only trail leading to the shore of Macey Lakes. This last section of trail is about five miles long and brings you to the shore of the lowest of the Macey Lakes.

The creek that runs down from Macey Lakes is wider than most creeks in the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness. There are many small waterfalls and cascades in the stream that fill the air with the happy sound of water. Verdant green mosses and flowers nestle in amongst the rocks. Shafts of Sunlight highlight miniature settings along the banks of the stream.

It is now the end of September and enough leaves have fallen off of the Aspen trees to carpet the trails with gold. Occasional pools of still water collect the leaves like cherry blossoms from a Japanese painting. Time and again we paused to absorb the beauty of our surroundings with our senses. We could not just keep walking to get to our destination on this trail. It felt as if we were in a natural art gallery browsing the paintings. Sometimes you just had to stop and look at one particular scene for a while. Unlike a conventional painting, these portraits could also be heard, touched and smelled. You are literally a part of the scene.

Our friend Professor Wilbur Miller who is a Ph.D. in Mathematics was our companion this day and we looked forward to some good conversation during the course of the outing. Conversations where we would take turns being Teacher or Student.

The first part of the outing uses the Sangre de Cristo "superhighway" the Rainbow Trail. Since this trail traverses the entire range in a North - South direction and never gains or loses much elevation we covered the first two miles in about a half an hour.

At the intersection of the Rainbow Trail and Macey Creek there is a wide wooden foot bridge that crosses the creek. Below the bridge are several wide pools of clear water and a nice spot for camping with a fire ring and logs to sit on already in place.

I remembered reading a book about "Bridges". The book said there are many types of Bridges. The physical bridge like the one we were standing near watching the Aspen leaves float by was the kind of Bridge most people were used to seeing. A poem can also be a Bridge taking you mentally to a special place the poet had in mind. Here is part of a poem by Robert Frost. See if it acts as a Bridge to somewhere for you:

" The woods are lovely dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep.

And miles to go before I sleep.

And miles to go before I sleep. "

This is one of my favorite poems because it is about places like the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness. The Wilderness is a special place to go to pause in life and reflect on your life and your destiny. A place of reflection and renewal where new goals can be established. A timeless sanctuary from the rhythms of ordinary life.

The book I was reading talked about Monks being Bridge builders. Their Bridges took you from the material world to the realm of Spirit. So many times the Monk would build a Bridge from the community he or she was near to the Spiritual realm and after they were finished with the construction (if you could call it that) the community would misinterpret the reason for the Bridge. The community would stand on their side waiting for the "Bridge Builder" to walk across the Bridge into the material world where they were. For a while, maybe a long while, the community did not See that the Bridge was for them to go in the direction of the Monk.

The book said that the people would think the Monk was lonely and had built a Bridge to join them. Just the opposite. The Monk was giving the community a chance to have an easier time getting to the Spiritual realm. The "Other Side" as some call it.

We turned West up the Macey Lakes trail and soon came to the "Copperstained Cliffs". So named for the copper color of the Autumn tundra grasses on the steep slopes of Little Baldy and Baldy mountain on either side of us. An avalanche had created a wide clearing in the forest that gave us a good view all around. One hundred foot high cliffs of what looked like limestone were interspersed with the slopes of grass.

Shortly after the Coppperstained Cliffs we came to Macey Falls. I stood on the edge of a forty foot cliff and looked down at the roaring water. I took a deep breathe of the fresh, mist filled air and watched my Olympus 35mm camera come unclipped from the sternum strap of my rucksack and bounce wildly down the cliff! With each bounce I expected to see the camera explode into fragments of components. Time slowed down as happens in many accidents and as I watched the camera come to rest at the base of the cliff I simply jumped after it without thinking.

Marty and Wilbur later told me that their mouths dropped open as the saw me suddenly leap into the air. Our dog Shogun was so used to going wherever I went that he leapt with me. Shogun and I landed at the base of the cliff unscathed. I was so focused ( pun intended! ) on the camera that with the help of some adrenaline my legs were able to cushion the jump. It wasn't until I bent over and picked up the camera and found that it was only scratched in a place or two that I looked back up the cliff and wondered how I had managed such a leap of faith.

"Hmm" I thought. "Maybe there was something to those old Kung-Fu movies with David Carridine as the Buddhist Monk they called Grasshopper!"

I tried to jump back up the cliff but only got a few inches off the ground and ended up scrambling up like anyone else.

We soon reached lower Macey Lake. My eyes moved from left to right. Glacial action had created a grassy slope followed by a mile long wall of stone followed by a perfect pyramid shaped mountain followed by an inclined plane of rock thousands of feet high. At the foot of all this was a lake the shape of a molar tooth.

"Good thing we didn't bring any dentist friends" Wilbur quipped. "They would probably want to do a root canal on the lake".

Marty, Wilbur and I found a grassy spot on a promitory overlooking the lake. As we ate our lunch Wilbur taught us a little about the origin of the symbols used for mathematics. Apparently many of the symbols are of ancient origin. A symbol used in Celestial Mechanics for instance is called "The Dragon" and is used to refer to the node on the ecliptic plane that coincides with an eclipse of the Earth's Moon.

"You see." Wilbur explained. "The Chinese believed an eclipse of the Moon was caused by a great Dragon swallowing the Moon. When the Moon would go dark the Chinese would pray and bang on drums and pots and pans to scare the Dragon away. When mathematicians needed a single symbol to represent this moment in the orbits of two celestial bodies; they remembered this old belief and decided to use a stylized dragon as the symbol."

Wilbur also told us about his friend Dr. John Gill; the legendary professor of research mathematics and technical rock climber whose biography written by Pat Ament of Boulder - "Master of Rock" has a special place on our bookshelves. I told Wilbur that I had followed John Gill's intellectual lead for many years. That through just a few books; Dr. Gill had shown us how our minds could be shaped by the physical movements on the rock. The shape our minds took was a funny kind of shape. Not a sphere, or a pyramid, or any shape that is easy to describe; but a unique and flexible shape similar to John Gill's own mind.

After lunch we decided to hike up to the next highest lake in the Macey group. The dam of the lake was a single dike of granite with a small natural cut that acted as the spillway. We sat in the rays of the Westering Sun and wished we had brought sleeping bags to stay overnight. It was too beautiful to leave.

We retraced the route to return home. We did not see another Soul the entire day.