Hasty, Colorado

by Danielle Simone

The Stilling Basin is shallow and calm this early November sunrise. A lone Blue Heron stands in the water, hoping for breakfast.

Pelicans share the water at the reservoir with ducks, grebes, geese and gulls. Today, they seem to revel in the water…that is not yet ice.

Fall colors fill the Lake Hasty Campground in a perfect reflection.

The Arkansas runs low and quiet as it leaves the park, it too, showing fall colors along it’s banks.

From atop Red Shin Standing Ground, the dam stands on guard over an empty campground.

The shallow Stilling Basin holds a mixture of reflection and rocky reality. Normally a churning mixture of foam and water, it stands quiet in the fall. The Corps of Engineers is not releasing water. The reservoir holds only 23,400 cubic feet of water today.

Are you looking for a place to recreate? The weather is lovely, 60 degrees or so for the rest of the week. Charge your camera battery; pack your picnic basket; grab your hiking shoes. John Martin Dam is waiting with beauty, quiet, sunshine and plentiful wildlife…camera-ready.

Enjoy the fall season on the high plains of southeast Colorado…at John Martin Dam.

Hasty, Colorado is located about 2 miles north of John Martin Reservoir, in Bent County.  About 300 people make up the small community that is accessible immediately south of route 50.

Sitting between Las Animas to the west and McClave to the east, Hasty has been populated - to varying degrees, since the turn of the century, particularly during the building of John Martin Reservoir.

Valley Grocery (719.829.4810), Bud’s Live Bait (719.688.0303) and Hasty Retreat Bed and Breakfast (719.829.1890) are available for your visiting convenience.

Do you have family that worked at John Martin Dam when it was built?  Or are you just curious about the years and work that went into the reservoir that stands tall and sturdy across the Arkansas River today?

John Martin Dam photo by Danielle Simone

Come to Hasty Days this Saturday, Sept. 5th and watch a 6 hour movie on the building of John Martin Dam. Provided by the Corps of Engineers, the movie will be set up near Valley Grocery in Hasty.  For further information, contact Shawn Cardinelli at 719.829.4572.

See you all at Hasty Days, this weekend, Sept. 5, 2009.

By Danielle Simone

Mark your calendars everyone; Hasty, Colorado, will put on its annual day-of-days-to-play, exactly four weeks from today!  Hasty Days is an all day event not to be missed.  The first annual Hasty days, Sept. 6th, 2008, was a roaring success when hundreds of folks filled the small community of Hasty and made memories forever.  More events are scheduled this year; your day will be full of choices for fun, food and play.

The Hasty-McClave Volunteer Fire Department will start the activities with a hearty pancake breakfast at the fire house, from 7 to 9 AM, fit for all kinds of appetites.  The parade begins at 10 AM; $5 per entry with line-up at 9 AM.  Come early; get a good place in line.

The Turner Antique Tractor/Lawnmower Pull begins at 11 AM.  Last year, entries from several surrounding counties participated with some beautiful, unique and powerful machines. Pack plenty of water (Colleen will have lots of drinks available at the store).  The Lawnmower race follows the Tractor Pull.

“Building the John Martin Reservoir” will show some local history and give a respite from the hard playing going on around town.  John Martin Reservoir sits about a mile south of Hasty.  A stunning example of Nature’s wonder - molded by humans, the reservoir stores large amounts of water for agriculture while providing all types of recreation for anyone interested in playing on the high prairie of southeastern Colorado.

John Martin Dam photo by Danielle Simone

If all the action and walking and old time country fun gets your tummy growling, Funnel Cakes will be available all day.  A big yard sale will also run most of the day.

Enjoy lunch at Colleen’s store, (Valley Grocery); $5/person, $3/8 and younger. You can’t beat that price for Colleen’s famous vittles!  Don’t forget to ask for her world-famous chocolate pie!

The Pierce Bar-B-Q, starting at 6:30 PM, is the best in three counties.  Trust me on this, I ate way too much of it last year!  Cost is $11/person, $8/8 and younger.

The evening will cap off with Freddy Darnell and Country Gold from 8 to 11 PM.  Bring your dancing shoes or boots and enjoy the cool breezes and full moon of a beautiful prairie evening in southeast Colorado.   You will make unique, forever-memories for you and your family.

For further information contact Colleen at Valley Grocery, 719.829.4810.

By Danielle Simone

For Max Rodriguez, Pete Martinez and Ross Netherton, fishing at John Martin Reservoir on Saturday May 16 filled their wallets as well as their hunger; each received a $200 prize in adult class of the CASA (court appointed special advocates) fishing tournament.   Zach Ramsey, Hunter Cowen and Rugger Stocking each pulled in $50 for their prize catches in the children’s class.  (more…)

Mark your calendars, all you fishing aficionados; May 16, 2009, John Martin Reservoir at Hasty, Colorado.  Tournament registration - 8AM, Poles in the water - 10AM, weigh-in ceremony and fish-fry - 2PM.

Entry fees - $25 (16 +), $15 (juniors).  Cash and door prizes.  The best part: ALL PROCEEDS HELP ABUSED CHILDREN IN SE COLORADO.

For further info about the tournament - or CASA, call Shelly at 719.688.3245 or John Martin Reservoir State Park at 719.829.1801.

by Danielle Simone

John Martin Dam is full of surprises.  Wildlife is not only on the ground, in the trees, on the water and in the sky during the day…but in the sky as well, at night.

The constellations Leo the lion and Aries the ram, (lamb), may have a particular relevance during spring.  It seems the old phrase about March weather, “In like a lion, out like a lamb,” may have originated with these innocent animals who want nothing more than to slowly and quietly cross the sky at night while maybe entertaining a few stargazers now and then!

Jack Horkheimer, creator, writer and host of PBS’s program Stargazer, says in the draft of next week’s show, “So perhaps long ago someone tied this all together noticing that on the 1st day of March Leo the lion was just rising up into the heavens whereas at the end of March Aries the ram was leaving them.”  Horkheimer, Executive Director of the Miami Museum of Science and Space Transit Planetarium for over 35 years, gives a short, humorous look at weekly astronomical events of interest on PBS stations across the country.

So the next time you wander over to the dam for some wildlife enjoyment, stay a bit longer after the colorful sunset and look up. These nocturnal critters will take a bit more imagination to observe.  They haven’t walked the Santa Fe Trail, they don’t have a bag limit or a special hunting season with DOW and you don’t need a special, expensive lure to remember them.  But do wear warm clothing and bring your ‘noculars or telescope.

As Horkheimer always says at the end of his show…”Keep looking up!”

picture by Jacob Rosen, project supervisor, Transwest Dredge, John Martin Reservoir

Transwest Manufacturing, also known as Transwest Dredge, are packing up their tonka toys and going home.  The dredging is finished.   John Martin Reservoir now has a new ‘holding pond’ with a bunch of wet silt hanging out to dry.  When the sluicing gates open again for irrigating season, the water will flow easier and life at the dam, at least for the Corps of Engineers, will be  back to business-as-usual.

Jacob Rosen, site manager for Transwest, told me today they are proud - not only of the 120 day SAFE work project completed at John Martin - but that the project finished ahead of schedule.  He also commented on the beautiful sunrises and sunsets he enjoyed in our fair state. I told him we set up the extra warm weather during the past few months JUST so they would have less ice to push around out there on the reservoir! (Maybe we should invite them over from Louisiana more often).

The reservoir is still gaining water with 61,400 acre-feet at 4PM today, Jan 21, up 4,200 acre-feet from Jan 6.

by Danielle Simone

We watched a powerful attendant boat (like a tiny barge) work for 10 minutes or so until it finally moved a buoy northward near the dam. It buried it’s backside and tilted precariously a few times but seemed obviously suited for it’s mission.  As it happened, Max Pastor, one of the corps supervisors, was on the dam and explained the work as we watched it.  2 buoys, east and west of the pumping platform, are attached to the anchors that hold the platform in place.  The anchors must be moved as the pumping progresses.

Around 5PM, the sun slowly took it’s daily rest below the horizon.  The clouds and colors knew their parts well for this particular autumn presentation.  Small, delicate fluffies, exquisitely placed, filled with an orangey hue, laced in fucia. Before the final curtain call many minutes later, the colors spread to all parts of the sky, the west based in oranges, the east filled with delicate pinks and creams.  How blessed am I to be alive.

For additional, detailed information on dredging from the Corps of Engineers, please see education.usace.army.mil/navigation/dredging.html