fort collins courier
:
BICYCLE
summer 2014
Start: home in north Fort Collins
Nature/nurture
On Lemay, sharing the road with cars.
I
Cutting through residential streets to Redwood, formerly home to a large prairie dog colony, now home to large construction equipment
Joining the Poudre River Trail just south of New Belgium Riding along the trail lined with temporary construction fences through the former Link-N-Greens golf course, now future corporate headquarters of Woodward Inc.
t’s always seemed that nature doesn’t need me nearly as much as I need it. While I’m no backcountry-trekking Mountain Man, I do like finding a bit of nature close at hand. And I choose my bicycle rides to give me a quick hit of the wild – a small dose of that leaves me feeling refreshed, invigorated, nurtured. But though it’s still one of my favorites, this ride has changed. The prairie dog town along Redwood south of Conifer is now a housing construction site. The golf course where I spotted seven foxes during one ride is now a moonscape of graded earth waiting for office buildings to sprout. I’m not naive enough to suppose that development will cease; that all open fields will remain so; that the prairie dogs, foxes, red-tailed hawks, and other native species will not be pushed out, be unaffected by what we do, in our selfishness, with this gift of land, water, and sky. I’m selfish, too: I want nature close at hand, because it nurtures me. I hope we can remember to nurture it in return. -Steve Sedam
Emerging from the Mulberry underpass to a busy intersection before heading down to the river level again Traffic noise fades; a chorus of frogs greets me
Geese with their goslings share space with bikers, joggers and walkers. The path meanders along the Poudre, past Nix, Kingfisher Point, and Cattail Chorus Natural Areas. In an open field, white lime encrusts the soil surface, accumulated from decades as a sugar-beet processing dump. Restoration efforts are ongoing.
Riding past Prospect Ponds, trying to spot waterfowl. The city is at my back.
Plunging into the cool shade of the leafy Cottonwood Hollow Natural Area.
End: Stopping for a break at CSU’s Environmental Learning Center, I commune with the disabled hawks, eagles, and other raptors being cared for by the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program.
5