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One approach to Bear Peak is from NCAR
(National Center for Atmospheric Research), perched high on what used
to be called Table Mt. but is now called NCAR Mesa. Either way, these
researchers are nesting high above the city. The building was
designed by I. M. Pei, based on ideas from old Mesa Verde cliff
dwellings, maybe even from Stonehenge, but with a geometric
realization that is powerfully futuristic, even now, almost 50 years
after its construction. As a trailhead, it gives a disconnected
feeling to the hiker starting out into the mountains.
But, I walked west across the mesa,
soon enough passed into more organic surroundings of rocks, pines,
and grassland. I curved south into Bear Canyon. The view to the east
was framed by the canyon walls and showed two huge, slowly turning
windmills and downtown Denver beyond. The view to the west and north
was of empty wooded slopes and the Flatirons of Green Mt., towering
and edge-on.
I joined the Mesa Trail, crossed Bear
Creek, passed the turnoff to Bear Canyon Trail, and turned into Fern
Canyon. Much of this trail is a steep and rocky climb. To the south,
two climbers were very slowly making their way up the back side of
one of the flatirons. One fellow was making a good attempt at what
looked like a tough pitch. He came up under an overhang, climbed out
and up to the lip, but then fell back into his belay and was lowered
down.
 
Farther up, there are dramatic towers
of rock, making up the southern end of a Green Mt. ridge. A raven
perched on a height and cawed into the canyon a loud and echoing
territorial message.
The final ascent of Bear consists of
large flat plates of red sandstone. Some have been shifted into a
comfortable staircase, up and up to a sharp, high peak. Storm clouds
glowered over Longs Peak to the northwest and over all of the Indian
Peaks to the west. A chipmunk scampered and nosed about for lunchtime
crumbs.
I soaked it in—the grand and
powerful weather to the west and the soft, warm breeze here, snowy wild
land to the west, and civilized home just below. These Local Three,
Green, Bear, and South Boulder Peak are steep, hard climbs, and they
put us up high; yet they are so close. I enjoyed the contrasts a little
longer and then headed down.
Others were coming up. One said, "I was out hiking this, like, new trail last week, one that I haven't, like, been on before. …"
Where do all these likes
come from? It's as though they can't tell you exactly what they are
experiencing, but it was something like this other thing, and you will
just have to imagine the much richer and more wonderful truth. From
thse few crumbs of approximation, from these vague and flickering
shadows on the cave wall, you will have to construct for yourself the
sharp and brillient truth. Is English so poor a tool that is can't
begin to encompass the, like, richness of our lives?
On the way down, I watched a Gray Headed Junco gathering bits and shreds for its nest.
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