Cache LA Poudre: The Natural History of a Rocky Mountain River

by Howard E. Evans, Mary Alice Evans

The Cache la Poudre River and its tributaries flow through the major cities of north central Colorado. In 1986, a major portion of the pristine Cache la Poudre and its south fork were added to the federal Wild and Scenic River system, the first river in Colorado to be included.

With its eloquent and often poetic style, Cache la Poudre explains the natural history of the river basin beginning in the tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park and tracing the river eighty miles through several life zones before joining the South Platte just east of Greeley.

Arguing convincingly a philosophy of ecological responsibility, the authors tell this story with superb awareness of the balances in nature and the impact of human intrusion. Exquisite detail is paid to plants and descriptions of the complex meanings of birds’ songs, the sexual ritual of insects, and the struggles between predators and prey elicit vivid visualization and an exhilarating sense of discovery.

An engaging and educational journal of two modern-day explorers, Cache la Poudre may join the ranks of some of the best environmental books written, including works by Enos Mills, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Wendell Berry.

Genres: American History

Paperback

First published December 1, 1991

Reviews

[David Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very readable, engaging account of the two-year expedition led by Stephen Long in 1819-20 to explore what is now Colorado's Front Range, find the headwaters of the South Platte and Arkansas rivers, and trace the path of the Red River, the boundary with Mexico of the Louisiana Purchase. The account focuses on the natural history of the area since the author was a well-known naturalist and entomologist himself, but the book should appeal to just about anyone interested in American Indians, western American exploration at a time when the landscape was inhabited only by Indians and native animals, geology, and geography as well as natural history. The narrative includes an account of the first ascent to the summit of Pike's Peak (at least the first recorded ascent by European Americans)--a highlight of the book. A friend recommended the book but I set it aside for a while before cracking the cover (which is not very visually appealing). When I got started, though, I found the writing to be captivating and I finished it quickly.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first thing to note is that the Goodreads summary of the book is totally inaccurate. As printed, it is actually the summary of another of Howard E Evans books about Steven Long's expedition.

This book is actually a natural history of a narrowly defined watershed in Northern Colorado, along and around the Cache La Poudre River, west of Fort Collins. It was written with his wife, also a biologist, after their residence of 15 years in a home overlooking the canyon of the river.

Published by a University Press, authored by academics, this story of the area is anything but dry and austere in its style. In simple and direct writing, it's nothing short of a love letter about a beautiful and rich ecology.

I've lived in this area for years now, traveled its trails and mountainsides and forests regularly, and read every history of it I can find. Howard and Mary Alice Evans brilliantly capture the essence of Place in this book.

[Barbara Brabank · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping for more detail on the actual insects and other animal and plant discoveries so I was disappointed. It did touch on the trials and hardships the men faced and were still able to gather, describe, and sketch specimens. Titian Peale's sketches and drawings are my favorite so I also was disappointed when his work was just skimmed over and Say and James were more focused on.

[Marcus Pacenza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this one up at random at a used-book store in New Orleans. A great read, full of entertaining stories of the trials and tribulations that Stephen Long and the gang went under as they attempted to gain as much information as they could, be it cartographic or naturalistic, about a large swatch of what was then the "Louisiana Territory."

[David Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read this book twice in the last four years. The longer review, below, is my original. I am intimately familiar with the geographic area covered by this book, but I realized on the second reading that the authors were too close to their subject because they make assumptions that all their readers will be intimately familiar with the geography. Readers who aren't in the Cache la Poudre River watershed will miss some of the nuances of the landforms because the Evanses just didn't give enough detail and their maps weren't sophisticated enough to disclose all the subtle details of the watershed. Nevertheless, readers interested in ecology, hydrology, and water use issues of rivers on the Front Range of Colorado should get a great deal out of this book--even if they don't know where Log Cabin is located, for example.

This book by Colorado State University entolomogists Howard and Mary Alice Evans provides, as the subtitle states, a natural history of a Rocky Mountain river: the Cache la Poudre River, which emerges from the tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park and mountainous areas to the north of the park and flows eastward out onto the eastern Colorado plains to join the South Plate River. In many ways, this is a very personal book; one chapter, for example, presents accounts of the authors' explorations of four tributaries they have visited on many occasions. While probably of greatest interest to people living in the Cache la Poudre watershed, the book nonetheless does provide enough general information about rivers draining eastward from the central Rocky Mountains to be a useful introduction to montane and plains river ecology. Some of the details about the flora are a bit too detailed and a bit too specialized, but otherwise I enjoyed and learned a great deal from reading this book; I "devoured" it over the course of just a few days.

[Emily Wortman-Wunder · Rating 4 out of 5]

"How is that? Is it textbooky?" my husband asked as he saw me settling into a book we've had on the shelf for at least a decade. The marvelous answer is, Not at all. It's an adventure story, as interesting as Lewis and Clark's travels (and part of the same general commission, to explore the vast new lands gained through the Louisiana Purchase) and in some ways more interesting, partly because it covers territory I know well, and partly because it's so relatively unknown. Howard Ensign Evans draws on the many published and unpublished notes and journals of the expedition to chronicle their journey from Pittsburgh to the Front Range of Colorado; as an entomologist, his focus perhaps overemphasizes the scientific discoveries of the party, but these are so interesting that he can be forgiven.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started out a little slow, but the last half was quite interesting. Oh, to imagine what it must have been like to experience the rockies and Colorado before the white man changed the landscape with farming, ranching, mining, and the development of cities.
This book speaks to the naturalist, detailing plants and animals as they were first discovered and named, some species that are no longer in existence.