Larger Than a Kayak

Today was our day in town, doing chores, buying groceries, that sort of thing.  Bright and sunny and early we head down Hwy 7 - the St. Vrain Canyon.  Coming around a corner we are surprised to see a huge, yellow 'steam shovel' crawling down the side of the bank into the river!

It then turned on its tracks and started crawling along the river, basically straddling it for the most part; sometimes in the water.  Now pre-flood there would not have been room for something so big, but the river bottom is considerably wider now.  It was just such a strange sight to see.

 
One of the behemoths had a huge jackhammer it was using to break apart the boulder piles; another one had the regular 'steam shovel' arm.

I watched that one take a giant scoop from the river, then turn and dump it on the bank.  Probably a hundred gallons of water poured out - then this huge boulder clunked down.  It would have been fun to just hang out and watch.  It brought back the kid in me!

After finishing our town business, we headed back home, up the same canyon - and passed SIX of these big machines cleaning dead trees and debris from the river bottom, with yet another one on the side of the road, getting refitted for different work.

Look at all those trees and rocks that were clogging the river!

 Thank you to all the 'hard hats', as the locals have nick-named them, for being willing and able to put in all this effort to help with flood control for next spring's runoff; and thank you to FEMA for awarding more money to the state to help with this.

We were also rewarded with some beautiful ice sculptures on the rocky cliffsides along the road.

 

This is the real beauty of our mountains.  Come up and get unplugged from the real world and let your imagination play, too.
Bionic Cowgirl