Ranger Meadows Trail at Shadow Lake Dam

Shadow Lake was formed by the dam built on the Colorado River near Lake Grand.  Ranger Meadows Trail loops to the dam and the trail follows the Colorado River south.  There were a lot of wild flowers in the meadows among the tall grasses.

 

 

The Colorado River was wider and deeper at the south end of the dam.  On trails north in the Rocky Mountains, the River waters are shallow and narrow like a creek.

East Shore Trailhead, Shadow Mountain Lake

We hiked the East Shore Trailhead which is 1.5 miles to the Shadow Mountain Trail.  It had a beautiful view of the lake and forest and it intersects with the Ranger Meadows Trail.  We decided to take the Ranger Meadows Trail and loop back to the Colorado River for another 1.5 mile hike. The lake waters appear very calm with it's pastel shades of blue set against a blue sky.  Like 'A Dream Within a Dream".

 

A Dream Within a Dream

  by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow:
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep 
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

 

Edgar Allan Poe:  Born in 1809, Edgar Allan Poe had a profound impact on American and international literature as an editor, a poet, and a critic His stories mark him as one of the originators of both horror and detective fiction. Many anthologies credit him as the "architect" of the modern short story.