A Horse, Err Fish, Of A Different Kind, Glenwood Springs, Colorado ::Winter Sojourn 2014/15

Copyright 2015, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Man and I have landed in Glenwood Springs Colorado.  We are waiting for Mother Nature and her brats to stop dumping *snow* up at Vail so we can cross the 10,000 plus passes and get to Denver.  It is looking like it might be a few more days.

See, this is what it looked like out of my desk window just about an hour or so ago.  Yep, Winter.

And, THIS is what it looked like when we arrived here in Glenwood Springs.

We arrived here wounded, having both had some snarky bug for days before we left Moab.  We are fine now, a bit weak, but, the worst has passed.  But, being wounded we have not done much.  Gone out to lunch a few times and had Jolly's oil changed.  One day on the way home, Man saw this road that went up "that-a-way" a bit, and announced as he turned,  "I just have to know what is up here."

So, up we went.  It was a pretty little road, with horse farms, one "knock your socks off" cute, cute, cute, log cabin home, and at the end of the road, a fish hatchery.

Well, now wasn't that a surprise?? It is an interesting hatchery.  We had not seen one like it before.  All the hatcheries we have been in have large "pools" or tanks.  This one has those too, but, the mountain water runs downhill through the tanks which are arranged in a stair step type set up. The tanks are not very wide.  It looks like they could just release the fish by raising the gates and let them travel down stream to the Colorado River.  I have NO idea if that is what really happens. We did not find any staff there that we could ask.  This is not a large facility, as far as we could tell.  But, we did find it fascinating.

And, yes, there were fish:

Some of them were labeled as Colorado River Rainbow.  And, yes, it is a bit difficult to get a good photo of them close up, all that wiggling and such.

You can learn more about this hatchery at the Colorado Parks & Wildlife web site.  When you click around and find the Glenwood Springs hatchery "fish" on the map near the bottom of the page, you will learn:

"The Glenwood Springs Hatchery, a cold water facility, raises Mackinaw (lake) trout, rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, and kokanee salmon fingerlings and brood fish. (Brood fish are mature females and males used to produce and fertilize eggs.) Subcatchable graylings are also raised here.

This is the third-oldest hatchery in the state, established in 1905."

Sometimes that little turn to see what is "up there" proves to be quite interesting.  A hatchery, up that hill.  Who knew??




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