Today was the first day of our Winter Break Road Trip down to Santa Fe. We packed up the car this morning and headed down to Fort Collins for the first part of the drive. Our first stop was for lunch at the relatively new Breckenridge Brewery. We had eaten here before, but when it was Sweetwater Brewing. We had a nice lunch and then headed over to Kingfisher Point to stretch our legs.
We parked at the southernmost of the two trailhead parking lots off of Timberline Road. Then, we hit the trail,
a wide gravel path that immediately passes between two sandpit ponds: Canvasback Pond on the south side of the trail and Gadwall Pond on the north side. Noelle took a few minutes to look for birds on the waters of the two ponds.
It's an impressive cluster of old buildings that has been repurposed. The trail through the headquarters area is a little confusing, but continues north where it intersects with the paved Poudre River Trail. As we made our way east on the Poudre River Trail we passed the very interesting Beet Effluent Flume.
It's a suspension bridge that once carried waste from the processing of sugar beets from the factory across the Cache la Poudre River to fields on the other side where the waste material was dumped.
From the interesting bridge we continued along the Poudre River Trail, passing beneath Timberline Road and into the Cattail Chorus Natural Area.
We followed a short children's interpretive trail spur and then turned around to head back to the car. We took a trail that paralleled Timberline Road back to the trailhead parking area. We ended up making a loop of just over two miles for our short hike.
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