Last fall, Sept 18, 2011, I decided to go up into a range of mountains that, up to now, I hadn’t done much hiking in.  I’m referring to the Never Summer range on the west side of RMNP (Rocky Mountain National Park).  I was hoping to see a little bit of fall color, but miss the snow.  Well, as it turned out, we had some snow a few days earlier, but it all melted off at the lower elevations.  One reason I picked the Baker Gulch trail is because it goes up to Baker Pass that I had hiked up to last summer (see this link for a description of that hike, or look at my blog entry directly below this one).  Only, I came up from the other side of the continental divide.  The idea being that it’d be neat to reach the same place from the opposite direction.  Didn’t quite make it, but it was a great hike (and still a great idea : ).

(Just to break up my wall of text extended intro to the hike : )

Before I go any further in the trip’s description, here is my standard, rather longish, comment. Please check my photo galleries here for all the larger and higher quality photos for this trip. The photos in that gallery are a quantum leap in size and quality compared to the little teaser photos I put in this site’s trip narrative (plus there are more of them). In addition, I have two other links that will help locate the area if you are interested in making the hike yourself. A Google Earth map can be found here. You will need to use the scale bar on the left side of the Google map to help zoom out to help locate the area based on where you live. (If you want to see all my trips, this link will direct you to a Google map that shows ALL my trips.  Please note that some of the links for the hikes are located somewhere in the hike itself, while other links on the map are the trailhead for the hike located on a road.  The issue being, even if the link looks like it’s pointing to a road, that’s actually just the trailhead.) In order to help you with the actual trail itself, you can use this link to view a portion of a topo map that shows the trail I took . Please note that all links open a new browser window.

(Again, just to break up my wall of text extended intro to the hike : )

In addition to the Google map link above, please see a Microsoft Live map below. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from my home in Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (and move the map around) to get more detail. Just make sure you don’t close the Microsoft “My Places” editor that pops up with map. If you close the editor (it is small and you can use/scroll/zoom the map without the editor getting too much in the way) without first saving the new location, the location button will disappear. If that happens, just close the map and click on it again on my web page.

Finally, on to the hike itself.

The trail starts off in a small parking lot that you reach soon after coming down off west end of Trailridge road in RMNP.  Took me a couple of hours to get there from Fort Collins.  But no problem.  I’d stopped and gotten my normal “lets go hiking” breakfast of an americano and cranberry scone, so I was raring to hit the trail. It was just a little cool and not much activity.  But, from what I could see in the distance, the hike going up the far valley was looking to be quite nice.

The trail, or rather, the road (more on that) crosses the Colorado River as it heads to the west and the Never Summers.  The fishermen in the distance are encountering just a small bit of turgidity to the normally, at this time of year, crystal clear water.  This is due to a little runoff from a recent snow storm that hit the high country a day before.  Of course, the water is still crystal clear compared to how this river looks further downstream.  Say, around Moab, UT : )

Some great meadows along this section of the Colorado River valley.  Hmmm.  Yeah, well, the road thingie. The thing is that just past where those trees start up ahead, the national park ends and the national forest/Never Summer Wilderness starts.  So, this is an “access road” to the National Forest.  I’m not really sure why they couldn’t just walk like everyone else, but whatever.  The other thing is that this was bow hunting season.  So, in the trees line there is another parking lot where bow hunters had parked and then walked up into the national forest to hunt.  Saw a few.  Nice people.  More on that later.

View up the Colorado River valley.  You can see the Grand Ditch snaking it’s way across the mountain slopes up the valley and on the left (west).  Will and I hiked that section during a snowstorm some years back (read about that here).  Was actually pretty fun.

That’s where I’m heading.  Right up that valley.  Some of the results from that early snow storm are still visible.

First part of the “trail” follows an old road.  This is after you go past the parking area for hunters and others looking for access into the wilderness area.

Wilderness boundary.

Saw a fair amount of ‘rooms on the trail.  Been wet and cool, so just the right combination.

Zoom.  You can see where hobbits or elves were nibbling on the edges.  I must have scared them off.

The trail ends up staying fairly high above the stream coming down the valley.  So, you can hear it and see it from a distance most of the time, but you don’t do any hiking next to it.

It’s not a heavily used trail.  Definitely gets more use than the trail that comes up from the other side of the range.  But still, not heavily hiked like Bear Lake : )

We had a very heavy spring runoff in 2011. Pretty much wiped out a section of the trail here : )

Here’s looking up the “ravine” where it all came down (all at once it looks like).

Zoom

Nice little pond along the way.  Did I mention no insects?  Yeah, pretty perfect day.

Interesting trail.  You basically saw every single type of “trail”.  Steep, switchbacks, rocky, good views, closed in, and, like here, a lovely little stroll through the woods.

Trying to peek through some aspens at the far mountains.

Zoom

Nice little lush interlude.

Closer

Yep, finally hit the point where I could see the “high country”.  Always nice.

Still a few flowery things around.  Even though the high country was flaunting a bit of early snow.

Here the trail runs through a fairly large boulder field.  Pikas, raspberry bushes, and lots of big rocks.

Zoom.  Luckily, there were a few cairns to mark the “trail”.
Yeah, some of that powdery white stuff on the mountain is fresh.  But, there is also a fair amount of snow left over from the prior winter up on the ridges.

Then I happened to turn around and look back down the valley.

Zoom.  Interesting.  The light would be different on the way back.

Late Indian Paint Brush.

Aspens juuusssst starting to speckle the path with pieces of gold.

Some upper meadows.  Did I mention I didn’t see many people?  I saw seven people the entire hike.  Three of which were trail runners (rather young looking man and two women, all very very very fit looking) who had RUN up to Baker Pass and were on their way down (running and having a conversation at the same time).  Sigh.  I told myself that they weren’t carrying a pack like me.  So there : )

Pretty much past the point of steep switchbacks.

The trail intersects with the Grand Ditch.  Looking “downstream.”

Looking upstream.

Zoom.  Pretty sure this is the end of the ditch.  I walked past that bridge up ahead where the trail crosses and continues up towards Parika Lake and Baker Pass.  Looked like the ditch ended shortly after that point.  That also what it shows on my maps.   I crossed the little log bridge and continued up the trail.

Great area.  Just great.  Did I want to go hike up that mountain?  Why yes, yes I did.  Maybe next summer.  Oh, and the photo?  I hate to say this, but the actual view was about 10 times as nice.  Really really really neat place.

Sorta looking back towards the area that I’d come from.  Basically, that’s part of the ridge that encircles a big bowl.  The trail (that I came up on) is down towards that ridge and then cuts down the valley to the left.

And this is the same place, but looking upstream.  That’s also the direction the trail to Baker Pass heads in.  Probably follows this stream drainage all the way up.

Decided to take a break here (how could anyone resist) and think about my next move.

Think about my next move?  The issue was, this was a trail junction.  One trail, to the left of this photo, goes to Parika Lake and Mountain.  The other trail, the one snaking off towards the distant trees, goes to Baker Pass.  Anyway, because of the junction, I could easily locate myself on the map I had.  It looked like I had 1-2 miles (it wasn’t a great map) of hiking left to get to Baker Pass.  So, 2-4 miles of additional hiking all total.  Figure 1-2 hours in addition to what I had to hike back down the trail I’d just come up.  Normally, not that big of a deal.  Always hard to tell, but if I continued to Baker Pass, I might end up hiking back in the dusk/dark.  But, hell, easy trail, and easy road back to the Fort.  Well, Geoff, what’s the problem?  Ah yes, the “issue” is that it is bow hunting season and I’m in prime bow hunting country.  And, even more to the point (little joke there : ) prime hunting time is dawn and/or dusk.  So, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to be hiking down a trail at dusk-to-dark when there were people out shooting sharp pointed things.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m perfectly fine with “sharing the road”, and bow hunters are great people and generally, due to the weapon being used, take great care in making sure of their target.  But, still………………yeah, sometimes my imagination ability gets a little out of control.  There really is pretty much zero chance of getting hurt from a bow hunter in this type of a situation.  Of course, the other way to look at it, from the bow hunter’s perspective, is that they would just as soon NOT have a hiker stumbling down the trail during the prime hunting time of the day.  They are spending vacation time and money in order to do what they are doing.  I’m kinda the intruder during this time of the year.  Bow hunters, and hunters in general, do provide a service in helping keep the game populations at a healthy level.

Anyway, long story short, I decided to keep going up the trail.  I mean, I was just getting to the best part of the trail, ya know?  And, maybe my map was a little off and Baker Pass was closer than I thought?  I figured I’d just go up a ways and check it out.  The trail became much less traveled. Probably because most people head the other direction toParika Lake and camp.

But, the forest (open and high as it was) did not end and turn into tundra with the pass in close view.  I had hiked another half a mile or so and it looked like it could be a little bit of a hike left before reaching the pass.  Bummer.  And, it was looking soooooooo good.

However, the day had been great, I’d seen some awesome country, and it’d still be here next summer (and beyond).  Besides, I wanted to come back anyway and check out Parika Lake.  Hmmmm, could the fact that I was getting a little tired have anything to do with my decision?  Not really, but, it’d been a full day of hiking so good enough.  And head back I did after reaching this place where the trail crossed the stream.  Yeah, little fresh snow up there.

The nice thing about heading back with a buffer of time to get to the car before dusk was that I didn’t feel pressured to hurry.  I could just relax and enjoy the hike back.  Which I did enjoy due to all the new great scenes I saw on the way back down.
Hmmm, don’t remember this view on the way up.  What’s that sticking up in the distance?

Why, I think I’ve seen that mountain a few times.
Zoom

Ah yes, quite the view.

Zoom.  I think that’s the parking lot down in the valley.

But, it was the mountain in the background that I was really interested in looking at.
Zoom more. Winter is not that far off.  We got some early snows this year.

Slightly different view after dropping some in elevation.  Plus the peaks and ridges were in sunshine.  It’s all about the light or lack there of that makes a photo.  Or, just looks good to stand and gaze at.  Putting the tree on the right side of the photo makes it a little different.  I’m always trying new ways to present the views in the photos I take.  See, I could have made this photo much different by climbing up from the trail to my right.  It would have still have had the tree along the right side, put it would have swung Longs Peak over into the center of the photo.  But, due to the size of Longs, and the light glinting off of the snowy ridges, and some other issues, this was probably the best angle.  Of course, it looks waaaaaay better if you go to my gallery on smugmug and look at it (like here).  IMHO, of course : )

End of the trail.  Just after 5 pm.  Good timing.

Summary?  Just awesome.  Got to go back and see more of it some day(s).  Highly recommended.  If you do it, after the hike is finished, consider running into Grand Lake (about 30 minutes or less down the road) and catch a meal before heading back over Trailridge Road.  Kind of an interesting little town.

- Geoff Weatherford

There’s a place, an area, a gem of a trail I found last summer (summer of 2010; sorry I’m a little slow : ).  I kinda hate to write about it, because I just want to keep it for myself.  But, that’s selfish (which doesn’t bother me too much : ).  And, it’s an unnecessary worry because from what I can see the number of people going hiking continues to decline.  So, if you’re interested in a cool kind of out of the way, but not too far of a drive, hike, then check this out.

Before I go any further in the trip’s description, here is my standard comment. Please check my photo galleries here for all the larger and higher quality photos for this trip. The photos in the gallery are a quantum leap in size and quality compared to the little teaser photos I put in this site’s trip narrative (and there are more of them). In addition, I have two other links that will help locate the area if you are interested in making the hike yourself. A Google Earth map can be found here. You will need to use the scale bar on the left side of the Google map to help zoom in or out to help locate the area based on where you live. (If you want to see all my trips, this link will direct you to a Google map that shows ALL my trips.) In order to help you with the actual trail itself, you can use this link to view a map that shows the trail I took . Please note that all links open a new browser window.

The Never Summer range of mountains is a section of country I haven’t spent much time in (but have done so since this particular hike).  The range of mountains forms a big chunk of Rocky Mountain National Park’s western boundary.  I’d looked at the Never Summer’s (such as when I come down off of Trailridge road) over the years, and even did some hiking on a little of it with Will.  But, I’d “never” been on it’s western slopes.  So, last summer figured it was about time.  Summer of 2010.

In addition to the Google map link above, please see a Microsoft Live map below. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from my home in Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (and move the map around) to get more detail. Just make sure you don’t close the Microsoft “My Places” editor that pops up with map. If you close the editor (it is small and you can use/scroll/zoom the map without the editor getting too much in the way) without first saving the new location, the location button will disappear. If that happens, just close the map and click on it again on my web page.

If you head up over Cameron Pass, going west, you drop down into the Michigan river valley.  You soon enter the rather, um, dainty little town of Gould.  Yes, I’ve zoomed through it many a times headed for Walden and the Zirkels.  But this time, I turned off onto Forest Access road 740 in Gould, crossed the Michigan River, and headed up the road into the unknown.  And boy, was I in for a shock.  Because when you cross the river you enter the REAL town of Gould.  It can’t be seen from the highway.  But, there’s a town back in there.  As in lots of houses.  Lots of families.  Very interesting.  Very pretty.  Very secluded.

(photo below is from up the trail a ways, not of Gould)

Anyway, I passed on through Gould going past the Pines campground and on up road 760 (dirt/gravel) until I came to the South Fork of the Michigan River trailhead.  Sorta.  As I found out, this is kinda a back country area and they don’t keep the roads up past a certain point.  So, about 3 miles from the trailhead, on a dirt road, I saw a sign that said something about parking for the trail.  But, hey, the road kept going.  So, I kept driving.  But, I drove VERY slowly in my small car.  Why?  Because I had to weave in and around mud holes that were large enough to swallow my car.  I swear I saw fenders partially sticking up out of some of the bigger ones.  Hope the drivers got out in time.  I would, much later, almost regret that little section of drive because while tricky to navigate with daylight, it was not something that you’d want to have to deal with in the dark.

After about an mile and a half of slow driving I saw another sign that said 4WD only from that point on.  And the trailhead was another one point five miles ahead.  Sigh.  Okay, better safe than sorry.  I parked my car and began a walk up the 1.5 miles of 4WD road to the actual trailhead.  Very pleasant scenery to look at, so no big deal.  No one else was parked there, or earlier.  I saw no one on the road, and I saw no one on the trail.

Turned out that was a very smart thing to do.  It’s hard to tell from just looking at the photo below, but it shows a section of the road that was definitely 4WD.  And, you’d better know how to really use it.  And, it got worse.  So, unless you try this in a very good 4WD vehicle, and you are experienced, I’d really recommend you park back where I did (or sooner, depending on the vehicle you are in).

That said, the “road” eventually got me to the the trailhead.  Ahhhh, I love trail heads.

Checked out the various signs including how far it was to Baker Pass.  Gee.  Only 4 miles?  Piece of cake.  Mind you, that would mean an 11 mile round trip counting the road section I had to walk.  But still, noooooooooooooo problem.  I’m also a trifle suspicious about the “4” mile listing on the sign.  According to my National Geographics map tool (which is usually pretty conservative), the trail is actually a good 5 miles one way.   My feet at the end of the hike agreed.

So, off I went.  And almost immediately discovered that, yeah, while the 4WD road had lots of recent use, the trail I was going to be following (ha ha, little joke there, you’ll get it : ) looked very, say, untraveled.  Now, all the trail didn’t look like this, but, no, this wasn’t going to be like Bear Lake trail.  Or even the Michigan Lakes trail.  Oh well.  Looked nice to me.

For a good mile or so the trail wound through a somewhat closed in valley.  Some very small meadows occasionally, but mostly forested and with some moderate uphill sections (nothing extreme or long).  The river was generally within sight, or at least close by.  Nice trail.  But then………

…………. it opened up.  Wow.  And, still, no people.

I was checking out the vistas, looking back down the valley, or maybe across, anyway, when I spotted a coyote looking for something to eat in the tall grass.

He really isn’t that far away, but my lens doesn’t “reach out” that far.  Much better looking (larger, etc) on my smugmug website.  This link might work http://geoffw.smugmug.com/Colorado-Trail-Hiking/SF-Michigan-Baker-Pass-July-31/19226547_JztNGd#1499807700_Dp3LDkm

A trail Frodo would like.

Close-up of a mushroom

Yes, the area opened up.  And, at the same time, the trail sorta had a tendency to disappear.  Sigh, I spent quite a bit of time hunting around for the trail.  For various reasons, I like to know where the trail is and follow the trail.  Because the trail probably knows the right direction, whereas, I didn’t have a clue where Baker Pass was.  Also, trails are usually the easiest traveling (they skip big marshes and cliffs).  Plus, it’s kinda fun trail hunting.

So, what I’d do is when the trail disappeared into the grass, I’d look around.  Sometimes I’d see some rocks piled up in the distance as below.

Zoom.  Quite helpful.

If you were lucky, you’d find a series of such rock cairns.

Sometimes the “sign” would be a post sticking up in the distance.  As below.

Sometimes you’d just have to hunt around.  Maybe go the general direction and check any sections of woods that bordered the grass.  You could usually pick up the trail where it entered the forest because in the forest it would not be overgrown.   Slash marks on the trees are also good signs.

Field of columbines.

Closeup

So, here’s a perfect example of trail hunting.
Found a post.  Look around for any faint hints of a trail.  Ah yes.  In the far distance, against the trees on the other side of this large open section, you can barely see another post sticking up.

Zoom a little.  I wander through the meadow to it.

Get to that post and look around.  Hmmm.  Gee, that opening over there in the trees looks kinda “trailish”.  I head over and check it out.  (NOTE! – Always remember where the last point you saw the trail.  Like this post.  If necessary, come back to this post and then head off in a different direction.  Normally you find something within 5 or 10 minutes.  Use your judgment.  No need to rush.  Of course, no way to get lost on this “trail”.  Just head downstream and you’re bound to end up back at the car.)

Yep, I find that opening was the trail.  Notice that in some areas you can find a lot of “game trails” that may look sorta like this.  Although, I was pretty darn sure this was the real trail (as you can see, not highly traveled at all), due to seeing the big slash mark on the tree to the right of the trail.  That was the positive identification of the trial.  Not all trails will be slash marked, but most of the older trails that have been around for decades will have those types of marks.  And then, not many elk put posts in the ground or pile rocks on each other : )

Small note on this trail.  I did run into a couple of sections of the trail that went through some marshy/old forest sections.  On parts of those the “trail” was pretty difficult to locate.  So, I’d end up going through what I figured was the correct direction.  Then once I’d gotten through the marshy/old forest section, I’d look around a little to pick up the actual trail again.  These sections were normally no more than 50-100 yards of length, but I probably spent up to an hour slowly making my way through them.  On the way back down I didn’t have to figure out where to “pick up” the trail each time, so it went a lot faster.

Taking a break.  Wasn’t sure I was going to go any further.  It was taking a long time finding the trail, and I really didn’t know where the end of the trail was.  However, after I’d had a rest, ate a protein bar, and chugged some G2, and reminded myself that I was doing this for the good of all man(and woman)kind, I was ready to carry on.  Glad I did.

The area kept opening up to great views and large meadows. Of course, the large meadows meant taking time to figure out which way the trail went.  Also, hmmm.  Uh, where’s this pass I’m supposed to be going to?

Some nice wildflowers.

Shortly after this, headed pretty much straight ahead through the flowers (yeah, another section where the trail disappeared), I got to a point where I could look around the curve in the valley and see, supposedly, Baker’s Pass in the distance.  This is a bit of a zoom, so it’s much further away than it looks like in the photo, but  I had to assume that was the pass.
It looked…………………interesting.

Once I turned and headed up the valley towards the pass, the trail started to change.  Here I am after crossing the river looking back at the last meadow I had just hiked over.

Different perspective.  Lovely trail.  Even prettier than the photo shows.

Now, turning back towards the direction of the pass, you can see the valley start to narrow up a bit and head uphill.  Luckily there were some cairns to follow.

Zoom.  Like this one ………

Why lucky?  Because a lot of the trail followed the streambed.  Actually, “in” the streambed.

And then after a while the trail would pop up into the forest and again be very visible.

I did go by an incredible meadow full of columbines.

Once you got closer to timberline, and the lushness wiped out any ability for finding a trail, or cairns, the posts started to show up again.  That said, they were somewhat few and far between.  But, I figured, heck, the pass has gotta just be straight up the valley.  So, no big deal.

With that kind of thinking, I almost missed the trail heading off to the side.  I just happened to glance around (well, actually, I couldn’t see the trail and hadn’t seen a post for a while so I was looking around rather intensely) and spot a couple of rocks piled on each other up in the woods to one side.

Zoom

So, I headed over to take a look.  When I got to those rocks I then was able to spot a sign alongside a trail.

The sign indicated the way to Baker Pass and, yes, I could see there was a trail headed that way.  So, good deal.  The other direction looked like it headed towards Silver Creek which was a stream a couple of drainages to the north. Sort of towards the Craigs.  Neat looking trail.

The lower sign pointed back towards the directions I had just came from, which made sense.  I was on the South Fork trail according to the sign at the trailhead I’d started at.  I believe the “Never Summer Trail” is a series of trails that follows the Never Summer Range.  So, the Baker Pass to Silver Creek trail was a subsection of that series.  I guess.

Anyway, I’d “found” my trail again and headed up.  I was very close to timberline and so, I supposed, close to the pass.  Well, sorta close.

Zoom.  Well, at least I could see another post to hike towards : )

The views were stunning.  Which was good.  I found myself having to stop quite often and try to get some air into my lungs.  It was nice to have pretty views to look at while gasping for air.

Reminder.  I saw absolutely no one the entire day.  Nor, no recent sign of anyone.  Amazing.

Looks like the top of the pass just up ahead.  Nice to see.  In more ways than one : )

Beyond the sign.  Here is what I saw after walking up past the sign on the pass.  Nice stuff.

Turned around and took a photo of the valley I had just hiked up.  Uh, yeah.  A ways back to the car : )

Looking back towards the western part of the continent again (Actually, it seems a little confusing that I’m looking down into the Colorado River drainage that heads towards the Pacific.  I mean, I had to come over Cameron Pass to get to this trailhead, but Cameron Pass is not on the Continental Divide.).  I hiked up to within a mile of this pass from the other direction this year (2011).  Great hike. You come up from the Colorado River from a trailhead that you reach about 10 miles after dropping down off of Trailridge Road (RMNP).  So, you start in the National Park and after only a mile or so of hiking you enter the Never Summer Wilderness area.   The park boundary from here is approached by looking straight down that valley in front of me and then following the valley as it curves around to the left.  So the trailhead in RMNP is at least 6-7 miles away and far out of sight.  Everything in sight in this photo is (to the best of my knowledge) in the Never Summer Wilderness.

Howsoever, it was time to get moving back towards the car.  So, I turned back and headed downhill and noticed several things really quickly.  One, it was a lot easier to breathe going down than it was coming up.  Two, it was a lot harder on the knees going down.  Oh well, it turns out the flowers were really nice to look at, so I ignored my knees.

I think it is safe to say that I hit the peak of the wild flower season for this area : )

On the way back down, I tried to follow the trail through a section that I had missed on the way up.  Cause I kinda missed the trail the first time when I had to cross the creek.  If you are coming up the valley, headed towards the pass, you will eventually get to this point in the photo below.  What I did on the way up was continue going straight up the meadow (cause I didn’t see any other way to go).  And then eventually having to cross the stream way up ahead in the far meadow because I never could locate the trail again on this side of the stream and stopped to do some eye balling of my surroundings.  I finally happened to look across the stream, and said to myself ….”Self, ya know, that sure looks like a trail over on the other side of the stream…”  or, something to that effect.

So what you want to do, assuming you are hiking up this trail and you get to where I am standing in the photo below,  is know that the trail (using the term loosely) cuts to the right at this point and crosses the stream.  It then follows the tree line on the right side of the far valley.  If you peer to the far right edge of the photo below, looking over just inside the shade, you can barely make out a post that I missed seeing coming up the valley on my way to the pass.

Here is a photo I took by shifting the camera to the right and zooming at the post in the shade.  Yeah, I know, not much of a trail going down through all that grass is there?  But, when you get down to that post you can see the stream right behind it and the trail cutting up the bank on the other side.

By now I had a pretty good idea of where the trail was since I’d spent so much time finding it on the way up.  Which meant I could move along okay speed wise when I couldn’t see the trail (cause I mostly remembered the route coming up), and set quite a good clip when I could actually see the trail.  I was in a bit of a hurry because the day was winding down.  And I really didn’t want to have to drive back through that one section of rough road (that had portions of cars sticking up from the muddy pools of water) in the dark.

I pretty much put the camera away for a couple of hours and just concentrated on getting down the trail.  Which was a shame cause this part of the day is the best as far as “magic.”  But some times you just have to enjoy it as much as possible while moving fast.
That said, I cut it pretty close.

The little shiny thing on the other side of the pool of water is a reflection off of my car’s window.  After I put my pack in the car, put my tennis shoes on my tender feet, and got the car started, I “just” made it past the water holes before it got full dark.

The following photo is at the same time/place, but I changed the exposure so that the sky could be clearly seen.  Makes everything else look darker than it probably was (but, it was dark enough for me : ), but makes for a nice effect.

For some reason, there were very few insects (mosquitoes or flies) on the trail.  Which was very surprising since there were a lot of lush meadows.  Of course, there were no cows or horse sign.  That helps reduce the fly issue.  Not sure why the mosquitoes weren’t a problem.  At least, I don’t remember them being a problem.  That said, always carry some repellent with you.  Just in case.

Anyway, absolutely awesome hike.

- Geoff Weatherford

Because of the heavy snow pack from the late spring and early summer storms, I decided to head back to RMNP (Rocky Mountain National Park) on Sunday, June 13, 2011.  It had a fair amount of trails that were lower in elevation, but still in pretty areas whose trails would not be flooded.  In addition, I wanted to check out Trail Ridge Road, because I’d heard that it had some pretty interesting scenes due to all the snow.

Before I go any further in the trip’s description, here is my standard comment. Please check my photo galleries here for all the larger and higher quality photos for this trip. The photos in the gallery are a quantum leap in size and quality compared to the little teaser photos I put in this site’s trip narrative (and there are more of them). In addition, I have two other links that will help locate the area if you are interested in making the hike yourself. A Google Earth map can be found here. You will need to use the scale bar on the left side of the Google map to help zoom in or out to help locate the area based on where you live. (If you want to see all my trips, this link will direct you to a Google map that shows ALL my trips.) In order to help you with the actual trail itself, you can use this link to view a map that shows the trail I took . Please note that all links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, please see a Microsoft Live map below. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from my home in Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (and move the map around) to get more detail. Just make sure you don’t close the Microsoft “My Places” editor that pops up with map. If you close the editor (it is small and you can use/scroll/zoom the map without the editor getting too much in the way) without first saving the new location, the location button will disappear. If that happens, just close the map and click on it again on my web page.

So, I got up Sunday morning, stopped by Starbucks on my way out of town, and by the time I hit timberline on Trailridge I had to agree with what I’d heard.  Yes, they had lots of snow.

This trip saw me begin to use a slightly different technique of taking some of my photos.  I’d seen my children use the method of taking photos from a moving vehicle.  So, I did the same.  However, it was a little different in that I was the driver.  Ummm, I really don’t recommend doing this, but it did allow for some nice photos.  Of course, I should add that whenever I took the photo I looked behind me, make sure there was no traffic behind me, stopped the car, and then took the photo.  Yeah, sure.  That’s exactly how I did it.

I stopped at the Forest Canyon overlook to get out of the car, enjoy the views, and take some photos of the surrounding area.  It really was quite pleasant.  I was in my tshirt and comfortable.  It helped that there was only a slight breeze.

Maybe these people are from Florida.  So, playing in the snow is a big deal : )

Sans people.  Longs Peak in the distance.  Probably no one hiking up that mountain today.

Looking across Forest Canyon.  I think up Hayden Gorge.  I believe I looked up Gorge Lakes canyon further up the road and all the lakes were still frozen over.

Visitors center at the top of Trailridge.

Heading down towards Milner Pass, the snow level was deep into the trees.

Milner Pass.  No trails were open.  Actually, no trails were visible, much less open.

By the time I got to the East Inlet trailhead, it was looking a lot better (as far as hiking).  I’m sure the water was cold, but people were out boating around Grand Lake.  And you can see the aspens were green.  Lots of snow up in the mountains.

Got on the trail and immediately started seeing some nice fleurs : )  Spring was quite a bit more advanced than when I was on Lumpy Ridge.  At least at the altitude of Grand Lake.

Looking up the valley at Mount Craig.  The trail to Lone Pine Lake goes to the left of Craig.  There is no official trail that goes to the right (or, that goes very far).  But, I’ll have to go that way some day.

Looking back down at Grand Lake in the distance after gaining some altitude.

Zoom.  I’ve considered living here (when I “retire” ha, ha : ), but it would not be cheap.  So, probably no go.  Very nice place to visit.

Nice spot to rest.

Lots of water to look at.  The rock looks all sparkly because there was water running over the top of it.

Perfect place for lunch break.  It was a bit on the loud side due to the high water.

Hmmmm.  White stuff?  Last year on this same trail (one day later in June) I saw no sign of snow until I got within half a mile (or possibly closer) of Lone Pine lake at a much higher altitude.

The bridge.  And more of the white stuff.  According to some hikers that were headed down, the trail just past this bridge had snow that was “too deep to hike in”.  I took their word.

Nice waterfall.  EXTREMELY loud waterfall.  Even though it was 50-100 yards away.

Zoom.  It’s really quite large.

Better view of the bridge.

I took a break here and then headed back.  From some other hikers, the snow got solid and deep not too far up the trail (I think Lone Pine lake is another 1 mile further)..  For this hike, as on Lumpy, I was carrying a “practice pack weight” of 40 lbs.  So, this was far enough.  As it turned out, it was maybe too far.

On the way back down I stepped just a little too close to the edge of the trail shown in the photo below.  The edge of the trail crumbled and fell down into the canyon while I watched.  I had another close call further down when I wasn’t paying quite as much attention to the trail while using my camera.  The issue was, I’m used to hiking with half the weight I was carrying for this hike.  So, what I took away from this hike is that when I’m carrying this much weight, I have to watch my balance a lot closer.  You tip over one way or the other and it’s a lot harder to catch yourself.  I wrenched my leg pretty good.  I didn’t feel it at the time, but it bothered me for the rest of the week after the hike.

The pasque were pretty.

As were these pretty orangish-red East Inlet mountain flowers (not really sure what the real name is : )

This little stream was just blasting its way down the mountain.

A pretty green, and very wet, meadow area after losing most of the altitude.  Very surprisingly, not that I was complaining, even with all the wetness there were no mosquitoes (or, not enough for me to notice).  Just a week or so too early, I guess.

There are some moose down in the green meadow across the river.  Hmmm.  Okay.  A perhaps a little tricky to spot in this photo.  They were pretty far away.

Zoom.  Even zooming (which is only 5x on my lens) the moose still look small.  Oh well.  The one on the right had a small calf.  You can actually see it, unlike here, if you go look at the photos at their largest size at my smugmug gallery (http://geoffw.smugmug.com/Colorado-Trail-Hiking/East-Inlet-RMNP-June-13-2011/17868885_DBfDsq#1366728273_hq8HfQL-X2-LB ).

Took this photo right before I pulled out of the parking lot.  It really wasn’t that dark, but I exposed it for the sky because the clouds were so neat.  So, this is actually what the sky looked like.  But, the trees (to a person standing looking at the view) would be lighter.  This is a dynamic range issue with my camera.  Or, that’s the excuse I will use when I replace this camera (like, in a 100 years : )

Anyway, lovely day.  Great early summer hike in the Rockies.  I was, however, beat at the end of the day.  So, nope, I did not stop and take any photos on the way back (I did see quite a few moose on the way back).  On this hike I turned around after around 4 miles, so it was a good 8 mile hike with 40 pounds on my back.  Of course, I had a gimpy leg for the rest of the week (not from the hike itself, but from having to catch myself to keep from stumbling due to not paying attention where my feet were), but small price to pay : )

- Geoff Weatherford

As per normal, I took my annual hike on the Lumpy Ridge Loop trail on a Sunday, May 29 of this year.  This is memorial day weekend which means I get the following day, Monday, to rest.  As this is an eleven mile hike, and near the beginning of my hiking season, it always seems prudent to allow for a day of rest prior to going back to work.  Just in case : )

Since I take the hike each year at the same time, its very evident from year to year about the differences in the local environment due to the current weather patterns.  So, some years at this time, as in 2009, there were wild flowers everywhere.  Including lots of columbines.  This year they were unable to open Trail Ridge road for the Memorial Day weekend due to all the snow.  And I saw very few flowers.

Before I go any further in the trip’s description, here is my standard comment. Please check my photo galleries here for all the larger and higher quality photos for this trip. The photos in the gallery are a quantum leap in size and quality compared to the little teaser photos I put in this site’s trip narrative (and there are more of them). In addition, I have two other links that will help locate the area if you are interested in making the hike yourself. A Google Earth map can be found here. You will need to use the scale bar on the left side of the Google map to help zoom in or out to help locate the area based on where you live. (If you want to see all my trips, this link will direct you to a Google map that shows ALL my trips.) In order to help you with the actual trail itself, you can use this link to view a map that shows the trail I took . Please note that all links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, please see a Microsoft Live map below. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from my home in Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (and move the map around) to get more detail. Just make sure you don’t close the Microsoft “My Places” editor that pops up with map. If you close the editor (it is small and you can use/scroll/zoom the map without the editor getting too much in the way) without first saving the new location, the location button will disappear. If that happens, just close the map and click on it again on my web page.

When I woke up and looked out the window that Sunday morning, it was raining.  Not very hard.  But still…  Who wants to take off for a hike in RMNP when its cloudy, cool, and wet?  And, if it’s that way in the Fort, more than likely it’s that way in Estes Park.  I took a quick glance at some web cams in Estes.  Yep, cloudy and wet looking.  But, not actively raining.  Hmmmmm.  Went back to bed.

Sigh.  Couldn’t get to sleep and decided to go for it.  I’d packed the night before, so it didn’t take long to throw stuff into the car and head to RMNP (stopping at Starbucks on the way, of course : )  By the time I got to Estes Park and the Lumpy Ridge trail head (which is really the Gem Lake trailhead), the clouds had started to rise a little.  And, better yet, it wasn’t actively raining.

As I headed up the trail, the clouds continued to rise until some of the peaks were able to peak through the clouds.

Zoom

Feeling much better, I pushed on to Gem Lake.  I always forget (funny how that works : ) about how steep some parts of that trail are.  Luckily, its not very long.  That said, my legs were a trifle sore the next week from doing the rock step masters portion.  Note – I was carrying a heavier than normal pack for training purposes.   About 40 pounds instead of my normal day hiking load of fifteen to twenty pounds.  It definitely made a difference.

By the time I got to Gem Lake, small patches of blue sky were showing.

About half a mile past Gem Lake, on the way down to Cow Creek, the day had turned into mostly sunshine.  In the distance, the higher mountains had a fresh covering of snow.  Not like they were lacking in snow prior to the storm.

Cow Creek itself was at the stage of early spring.  So, no snow, but not much in the way of leaves or flowers.

This is pretty much the extent of flowers I saw in the Cow Creek drainage (and the Black Canyon side of Lumpy Ridge wasn’t any better).

Zoom

But still, the sun was out, mostly, and it had warmed up enough to be t-shirt weather.  Enhancing the mild day, while warm enough for a tshirt, it was still early enough in the season, particularly this year, that there were no bugs : )

The aspens in upper Cow Creek were leafing ahead of some of the lower groves.

However, the leaves had all disappeared by the time I got up to the intersection of the Lawn Lake trail that comes up Black Canyon.  Even saw a little snow (more than the prior year).

As I headed down the trail towards Black Canyon, and it’s very pretty lower meadows, I happened to spot a mountain peeking at me through the trees.

Zoom.  Ah yes, the Longs.

Coming down into the Black Canyon meadows is a highlight of this loop hike.  And, one big reason why I go in this direction (the other big reason is that by going counterclockwise you miss the warp in the trail between Cow Creek and Gem lake which can add close to 572 additional hours to the hike.  Or, is it days?  Well, anyway, much longer.).

It’s even nice looking back up the trail.  I did see a few climbers.  Too far away for my camera and it’s lens to capture much in a photo.

The views of Longs Peak and it’s associated neighbors were wonderful today.  This was due to the fact that the storm had cleared the air somewhat (even for late afternoon) and that the clouds were chasing each other among the peaks.

Twin Sisters

Longs Peak

Looking back.

Longs again.

New leaves and old rock.

Good view of the Black Canyon valley.  You think they would have any trouble selling housing plots here?  Luckily I think it is all protected now.

Old shed.

Continental Divide from Longs Peak all the way to Flattop Mountain.  No hiking up there today.

One last look back as I reach the top of the trail that then drops off into the Gem Lake parking lot.  And to think I almost didn’t get out of bed : )

Something else was looking in the same direction.

So ends the day (well, I did have to drive back to Fort Collins : )  Excellent start to what I’m sure will be a great hiking season.  Okay, second start of the season.  Conor, Will, and I really started the hiking season in Moab back in April.  But, almost the first local hike.  I did take one the prior week that I will report on in a future posting.

- Geoff Weatherford

(Note – Yes, it’s 2011, but I’m still posting about some hikes I did in 2010.  But, I’ve also started posting about hikes in 2011.  You’ll just have to scan down to see them.)

And it came to pass that one weekend I felt like doing “something different”.  Yeah.  Like, umm, not driving up Poudre Canyon again.  For a while.  And, no, I really didn’t want to drive up to Laramie, WY and points west.  Well, that really only left one area close by.  Yes, RMNP (Rocky Mountain National Park).  So, I got up fairly early, since, well, it IS tourist season so parking is a little tricky in some areas, and headed to RMNP.

Before I go any further in the trip’s description, here is my standard comment. Please check my photo galleries here for all the larger and higher quality photos for this trip. The photos in the gallery are a quantum leap in size and quality compared to the little teaser photos I put in this site’s trip narrative (and there are more of them). In addition, I have two other links that will help locate the area if you are interested in making the hike yourself.  A Google Earth map can be found here. You will need to use the scale bar on the left side of the Google map to help zoom in or out to help locate the area based on where you live. (If you want to see all my trips, this link will direct you to a Google map that shows ALL my trips.) In order to help you with the actual trail itself, you can use this link to view a map that shows the loop I took (care of the National Park Service). Please note that all links open a new browser window.

This was one of my “I don’t really know where I’m going to go hiking so I’ll just drive and eventually get there” kind of decision of which trail to end up at.  Which is what I did.

It was a very nice day and I got up into the park, and,

“….hmmmm, turn here and go right towards Trail Ridge?”

“No, guess I’ll turn left.  Yes, left feels good.”

“Lets see, should I stop here?  Nah, I’ll just keep driving till the road ends.”

“Oh look.  Imagine that.  The Bear Lake parking area.  Guess I’m supposed to park and hike here.”

And, since it was before 8 am, there was still some open parking (its actually quite a large parking area, but it does fill up quickly in summer time).  Of course, the Glacier Gorge parking area had already been full, or I would have parked there.  Oh well.  Fate.

(Note – RMNP has a great shuttle bus system.  So, if you get up too late to find a parking space, enquire about the available shuttle buses (some of which can be caught right at the visitor’s center) and let someone else do the driving.)

I wandered over to the trail head, still not sure where I was headed, and took a look at the map.

“Yesssss.  Well, nah, don’t feel like going up Flattop mountain, thank you very much.  Glacier Gorge?  Hmmm.  The Lock?  Hmmm.  Geee.  I’ve never been to a lot of those areas.”

And, it came to me that most of the hiking around Bear Lake I had never done.  Which, as I have been living in the area for approximately 237 years, you would have thought I’d hiked most of RMNP by now.  But then, as I looked around the trail head, I could understand why much of it I had still left to hike.  It was, to make a slight understatement, crowded.  Well, I’d just act like a tourist then.  And, since I’d never been to a lot of the areas, I’d do a loop.  And that’s what I did.  A very nice loop that let me get introduced to the area.  And, to my surprise, I liked it.  I plan on going back (although, maybe not in the middle of the summer : )

In addition to the Google map link above, please see a Microsoft Live map below. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from my home in Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (and move the map around) to get more detail. Just make sure you don’t close the Microsoft “My Places” editor that pops up with map. If you close the editor (it is small and you can use/scroll/zoom the map without the editor getting too much in the way) without first saving the new location, the location button will disappear. If that happens, just close the map and click on it again on my web page.

If you go to this link, http://www.nps.gov/pwr/customcf/apps/maps/showmap.cfm?alphacode=romo&parkname=Rocky%20Mountain%20National%20Park you’ll find a very nice map of RMNP that you can zoom in on and scroll around.  And the loop I did was the following (and easy to see on the map);

Start at Bear Lake, head down the trail to the Glacier Gorge trailhead, take the trail from there to Alberta Falls.  After Alberta falls I acted like I was heading to the Lock.  But, after a while I hit an intersection and took the trail to Lake Haiyaha (but, I took the primitive trail option; more on that later).  Then I just kept on the trail to Dream lake, past Nymph lake, and ended back at Bear Lake.

How far was that?  Well, around 6 miles.  I think.  But, it gave me a great view of the country and all the other trails that I could come back and do some other time.  Like, in the Fall : )

Okay.  Enough of all that.  On to the hike.  The loop started off in the forest.  It was very green and quiet.  I remember lots of ferns.  Elves flitting through the leaves.  Okay, maybe not the elves (although, there might have been elves).  This section of trail heading towards Glacier Gorge trailhead sorta parallels the road, but there are only a few times that you can see the road through the trees and I don’t remember hearing any car noises.

Once past the Glacier Gorge trailhead, you begin gaining altitude fairly rapidly.  This provides for some very nice views.  Which means you should stop and enjoy the views (while attempting to find some oxygen to breathe : )

Zoom.  Pretty sure that’s looking up Glacier Gorge.  But, I could be wrong.  Anyway, that’s one area in the future I want to hike to.

Part of the time you are hiking along, or traversing, a stream lined with aspens.  Yes, well then, this is a good time to reflect on the crowds.  So, even though the trail, in general, particularly up to Alberta Falls, had people in it that were coming and going (not as bad as a supermarket, but definitely not a wilderness experience : ), you could stop at any point, move off the trail a few feet, sit down, and relax.  And feel like you were, almost, by yourself (as long as you didn’t turn around and look at the trail).

And then I got to Alberta Falls and took a LOT of photos.

It was really a nice area.  Quite a bit of water coming down.  A couple of weeks prior to this and I’m sure it would have been even more “roaring” than it was today.  Towards the end of summer it might quiet down a bit.  But, today it was a bit of a spectacle.  Not Niagara, but fun to see.

Closer look.

Here I tried to do a “special effects” photo by slowing the shutter speed.  Makes it kinda different.  Of course, these all look a lot better on my main photo web gallery at www.geoffw.smugmug.com

After Alberta Falls the crowds thinned out some and you began to feel like you were entering the high country.

I want to go over that way sometime also.

Then you reached an intersection of trails.  You take off from here to either Glacier Gorge (Mills Lake), The Loch, or Lake Haiyaha.  I went to Lake Haiyaha.

Except, instead of taking the “main” trail to Lake Haiyaha, I took the “back way”.  Well, of course I did.  I had to.  It called to me. These things happen to me.  And, as it turned out, it was one of the true hidden gems of a trail.  Apologize about the darkness of the sign for the “unimproved trail”, but you will spot it right after turning on the main trail that heads to Lake Haiyaha (on your right).

I could tell almost immediately that the decision had been, as it was put in one movie, “a wise decision”.

After a short hike, the “primitive” trail passed a little lake.  I spent my “lunch break” there and enjoyed the sunshine and the view.  During my time there I saw no people (a couple did show up just as I was leaving) which is fairly incredible for being so close to Bear Lake.  This could be because the trail does not go directly to the lake, but passes it off to one side.  So, keep a little bit of a look out so that you don’t walk right past it.

Well, I saw no one except a very strange character.  He didn’t seem to be a threat, but I didn’t like the way he was eye balling my bottle of G2.

After leaving the lake, the trail wound back towards the main trail, and Lake Haiyaha, giving an occasional view of the surrounding mountains.  Such as this one of Longs Peak.

Not sure what stream this is, but it was pretty.

Once back on the main trail, you get a glimpse of the valley that contains Lake Haiyaha.  This is just a small pond.  You need to hike up a short side trail to get to the actual lake itself.

Another view of Longs Peak.  This was on part of the trail between Lake Haiyaha and Dream Lake.  I began to see a lot more people in this section of the trail.  Once past Dream Lake, and all the way back to Bear Lake itself, the trail was relatively crowded with families.  But, as they all seemed to be having a good time, it didn’t upset me too much that I didn’t have the trail all to myself.

View of Hallett Peak from the trail.

Zoom.

As it turned out, it was a great little loop.  Of course, the awesome weather helped.  Hope to get back into Glacier Gorge some Fall day when the aspens are golden (and the people have thinned out a little).  Of course, there are a lot of great trails to take at that time of the year.  So, could be a while before I return.  But, I guess it’s not going anywhere : )

- Geoff Weatherford

On day four of our trip to Moab, Utah I walked out of the motel room (early in the morning to go find an americano to drink : ) and into a much different, and better, weather situation than the cloudy/rainy day before.  This was good.  I figured we had a six to seven hour trip to get us back to Fort Collins at a decent hour.  If we used our time wisely, we could fit in one more hike prior to hitting the highway back to FC.

Before I go any further in the trip’s description, here is my standard comment. Please check my photo galleries here for all the larger and higher quality photos for this trip. The photos in the gallery are a quantum leap in size and quality compared to the little teaser photos I put in this site’s trip narrative (and there are more of them). In addition, I have two other links that will help locate the area if you are interested in making the hike yourself. A Google Earth map can be found here. You will need to use the scale bar on the left side of the Google map to help zoom in or out to help locate the area based on where you live. (If you want to see all my trips, this link will direct you to a Google map that shows ALL my trips.) In order to help you with the actual area itself, you can use this link to view a road and trail map (care of the official Arches Nat Park website) where you can see the Delicate Arch trail. Please note that all links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, please see a Microsoft Live map below. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from my home in Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (and move the map around) to get more detail. Just make sure you don’t close the Microsoft "My Places" editor that pops up with map. If you close the editor (it is small and you can use/scroll/zoom the map without the editor getting too much in the way) without first saving the new location, the location button will disappear. If that happens, just close the map and click on it again on my web page.

I got Conor and Will up in time to walk over to the Love Muffin cafe (where I had found my first cup of coffee for the day) for breakfast.  Great place.  Go there. 

Once done with breakfast we packed up and headed to the Arches National Park for what looked like a nice short hike.  Delicate Arch.  It was only a three mile (round trip) hike, so sounded perfect.

When we arrived I saw that this was NOT going to be a wilderness experience.  The very large parking area at the old Wolfe Ranch (trailhead for the hike to Delicate Arch) was already close to full and we could see lots of people on the trail.  I believe that this was approximately 10 am.  No matter, the day was pretty and the area was spectacular.

Conor checking out one of the old Wolfe Ranch "buildings".

Will was going to set the pace for this hike.  It was a moderately fast pace : )

When I said we could see people on the trail, I meant that literally.  As, the majority of the trail is all viewable from the beginning.  It heads straight up and over that rim of rock in the distance that the trail section below is pointed at.

Zoom.  Its hard to see in this photo (probably viewable on the larger photos found on my smugmug website), but there is a line of people going up that expanse of rock in the distance.

As we got closer it was easier to see the "trail".  There were lots of families, young children, old folks, thin people, thick people, etc.  It is probably one of the most, if not the most, popular hikes in the park.  Similar to the Bear Lake area in RMNP Colorado as far as popularity.

Conor in the distance.

Once the trail tops out, it takes you through some nicely different zones of the environment.  Conor walking through a section of sand in the distance.

Including views of the areas that look interesting, but where the trail does not go.  Hmmm. Maybe have to check that out some time.  A small arch (NOT Delicate Arch : ) can be seen in the far distance to the right in the photo below.

Zoom in on that small arch in the background.  More on that later.

The last part of the trail follows a nice ledge around the backside of the, ummm, mountain.  At one point there is a mini-arch (or, maybe they just call this a "hole"?) where you can get the first view of Delicate Arch.

Conor making his way up to to the hole.  They were insistent that I climb up also.

It was, I will freely admit, more imposing than what I originally was expecting.

Zoom a little.

Full view.

Will standing near the edge (of course : )

The last bit of the hike was along a neat narrow ledge.

And then you break out into the open.

Will and Conor decide to head over for a closer look.  I decided I liked the view just fine here and found a place to sit.

An unusual shot with no people.

Conor and Will at the arch.

Zoom

Inside the arch.

Of course, Conor got some views of the arch that I couldn’t.  Photos by Conor.

You can see the reason for the name “delicate”. 

Conor.  Up close and personal.

Looking back towards dad.  Photo by Conor.

Remember that distant hole in the rock?  Well, here is another view at a different angle.

Zooming in, it actually appears that there may be "two" holes.

Anyway, Fort Collins was beckoning, so we headed back.  Photo by Conor.

Going back down was much easier and faster.  The parking lot is back up against that grayish slope in the distance.

Zoom on my sons.

Near the end of the trail, we looked at some petrographs.  Photo by Conor.

These remaining photos are all by Conor on the drive out of Arches.  Using the technique "holding camera out the window while dad drives".

Fiery Furnace in the distance.

We had an uneventful drive back to Fort Collins.  If I remember correctly, we got back in time to celebrate at the Rio.

Good times.  Great memories.

– Geoff Weatherford

Day three in Moab had us wake up and discover two things.
1.  We were tired and sore from the hike to Druid Arch the day before.
2.  It was cloudy and rainy looking.

After we discussed the above two issues at breakfast, it was decided to head to the northern Canyonlands NP "Island in the Sky" area for short hikes and general sight seeing.  We headed north of town to the Canyonlands turn off and headed up the small two lane paved road.  After a few miles driving up a nice open canyon, we started to climb.  The road just kept going up, switch back after switch back, until we ended up on top of a very big mesa.

Before I go any further in the trip’s description, here is my standard comment. Please check my photo galleries here for all the larger and higher quality photos for this trip. The photos in the gallery are a quantum leap in size and quality compared to the little teaser photos I put in this site’s trip narrative (and there are more of them). In addition, I have two other links that will help locate the area if you are interested in making the hike yourself. A Google Earth map can be found here. You will need to use the scale bar on the left side of the Google map to help zoom in or out to help locate the area based on where you live. (If you want to see all my trips, this link will direct you to a Google map that shows ALL my trips.) In order to help you with the actual area itself, you can use this link to view a road and trail map (care of the official Canyonlands Nat Park website) where you can see the Island in the Sky area. Please note that all links open a new browser window.

Photo by Conor

In addition to the Google map link above, please see a Microsoft Live map below. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from my home in Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (and move the map around) to get more detail. Just make sure you don’t close the Microsoft "My Places" editor that pops up with map. If you close the editor (it is small and you can use/scroll/zoom the map without the editor getting too much in the way) without first saving the new location, the location button will disappear. If that happens, just close the map and click on it again on my web page.

“Well, this was interesting”,  I thought.   The road was rolling through lots of nice big open meadows.   But, not much to look at.  I stopped after around twenty miles or so at the park visitors center, just after the park entrance, and took a look at some of their maps.  Hmmmm.  Here’s some sort of overlook just up the road called "Shafer Canyon Overlook".  Made a list in my mind of a few other possible "views" and short hikes, and we drove a couple of miles to the parking area and headed up a short trail.

"What’s this, dad?" asked my sons as we parked.
"Not sure, some sort of view I guess.  Might be nice.", I replied.

We didn’t need to get very far on the short trail before we saw that, yeah, it was a view all right.

Zoom.  Damn.  I could only imagine what this would be like on a clear day, because even with the cloudy weather, and the occasional spit of rain, it was breathtaking.

Photo by Conor.

I mean, you just wanted to stand there and "look".

The road you see down below Will and Conor starts up close to the park entrance and goes down to hit the "White Rim Road".  A fairly popular jeep and bicycle dirt road that follows the rim of the canyon down the Colorado River to where it intersects with the Green River.  The White Rim Road then follows the rim of the Green River back upstream for another long distance.  If you head upriver, instead of heading downriver, on the White Rim Road you can also get to Moab by the dirt road.  I might try that some day, but not this time.

Here is a view of the road following the rim of the canyon as it winds down from the main park road and, eventually, drops down to the White Rim Road.  Much easier to see on my web site at the link above.

On the other side of where we were standing, you can see the road begin a series of switch backs as it quickly loses altitude on its way down to the White Rim Road.  Photo by Conor.

View of the distant La Sal mountains (zoomed in).  Yeah, I’ll be back some time when the weather was nicer.

"Uh, any more places like this, dad?"
Well, that kinda whetted our appetites for checking out some of the other viewing areas.  So, we headed out to check some more.

Next on my list was some place called "Mesa Arch".  The trail is a loop and it didn’t take very long to see that there would definitely be some "views".  But, where was the arch?

Oh, there is is.  Talk about up close.

Okay, maybe too close.  I began to get a bad feeling about this one : )

"Woah, dad.   You gotta take a look at this."

Yeah, it was a pretty awesome view.

Zoom.

Zoom.  That’s the Colorado River down there in the distance.

This is what it looked like from the top of the arch.  I think.  Conor took the photo.

Wait?  Geoff, did you say "top of the arch"?  Well, sure.  I mean, they had to do it.  It was jus too much of a temptation.  I grabbed a quick photo just before the ascent (just in case).

Here they are.  Now, I know what your thinking.  “Well, Geoff, just how big of a deal is this?  Was this really a scary thing to do?  Or, does it just look that way?"

Let me put it this way, there were quite a few other people around at the time.  NO ONE else even had distant thoughts about walking out on top of this arch.  The other tourists did take a lot of photos of Conor and Will doing it.  One older lady sounded a trifle hysterical.

And then, just to make sure that I left the park a few years older than when I’d come, they decided to wrestle on top of the arch.  Sigh.

Washer Woman arch in the distance.

After my heart settled back down into my chest, we headed over to Upheaval Dome.  This is a massive hole in the ground that was either caused by the the collapse of some salt (weak, very weak), an asteroid or meteor hitting the earth (they seem to think that is a big possibility), or aliens.  For some reason they did not put that last possibility on the sign.  But, I vote for aliens myself.

Pretty impressive hole.  It’s got some strange pointed rock formations in the bottom.

To give you a feeling for the size of the hole, here is a photo of one side of it.  There are people standing in the distance (we hiked over there eventually).  There is also a trail that circles the entire hole, but none of us felt like taking the approximately 10 mile hike.

Zoom.  There were a fair number of families hiking around.  My expectation is that all the parents lost approximately 5 years from their lifespan during the hikes while watching the smaller children running around.

We ate lunch and then headed back down the road to the Green River Overlook.  Named because it is a incredible overview of the Green River winding it’s way towards its intersection with the Colorado River downstream.

Zoom

This gives you an idea of the "height" that we were at when gazing at all this.  A person can also see why the road that follows the rim is called the White Rim Road.  Photo by Conor.

The final place for the day that we stopped to gaze and hike around a bit was at the very end of the park road.  Grand View Point Overlook.  I have no photos that can begin to provide the view that we saw from that final stop.  Just go there is all I can say.  Try to do it on a nice sunny day, preferably close to dusk or dawn.  But, even at mid-afternoon in the rain it was amazing.

You do need to be just a little careful around the edge of the viewing area.  There is no fence and it is a straight drop for a thousand feet or so.  After which your body will roll downhill before repeatedly dropping over smaller cliffs.  Most parent’s hands seemed to clinched rather tightly to the younger children’s arms.

Looking out, through the curtains of rain, towards the Colorado River.

Zoom

Conor trying to capture it all.   Me hoping that he kept a good perspective of where his feet where while looking at his camera.

Conor did get some great photos.  Photo by Conor.

I basically gave up with the photos and just looked around.  Photo by Conor.

Photo by Conor.

We headed back to Moab after this.  But, some day I’ll come back again.  I didn’t see it all.  And even if I had, I wanted to see it all again.

We got back early enough to find Zax still open.  So, we had a great meal.  Afterwards I read a book back at the motel and Conor and Will wandered around town checking the night life.

The next day we would head back to Colorado.  But, I had plans for one more hike before we hit the highway.

- Geoff Weatherford

Tuesday morning, day 2 of our trip to Moab, dawned with perfection.  I have not seen such clear air and blue skies for a long time.  Advance warning that there are a lot of photos here.  It was a long day, a long trail, and LOTS to see.

Before I go any further in the trip’s description, here is my standard comment. Please check my photo galleries here for all the larger and higher quality photos for this trip. The photos in the gallery are a quantum leap in size and quality compared to the little teaser photos I put in this site’s trip narrative (and there are more of them). In addition, I have two other links that will help locate the area if you are interested in making the hike yourself. A Google Earth map can be found here. You will need to use the scale bar on the left side of the Google map to help zoom in or out to help locate the area based on where you live. (If you want to see all my trips, this link will direct you to a Google map that shows ALL my trips.) In order to help you with the actual trail itself, you can use this link to view a road and trail map (care of the official Canyonlands Nat Park website) of the Druid Arch trail.  Please note that all links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, please see a Microsoft Live map below. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from my home in Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (and move the map around) to get more detail. Just make sure you don’t close the Microsoft “My Places” editor that pops up with map. If you close the editor (it is small and you can use/scroll/zoom the map without the editor getting too much in the way) without first saving the new location, the location button will disappear. If that happens, just close the map and click on it again on my web page.

And, of course, we were in Moab, Utah, so the scenery from our motel was nice.  Right across the street (on the left side of the photo below) is the Wicked Brew drive up java stop.  Great cup of java.

Zoom.  That bike rack is right in front of the Love Muffin Cafe.  A really great place to eat breakfast.  Really great in just about every area you could think of.  Really.  Trust me.  Or, ask my sons.  And only about a one minute walk (50 yards maybe) from our motel, the Bowen Motel, door.  This is the second year we spent at the Bowen, and I’ll probably go there again.

Will getting ready to hit the trail. (Photo by Conor)

Oh, did I mention that just across the street from the Bowen is the the Wicked Brew drive up espresso bar?  So, if for some reason you didn’t want to go to the Love Muffin Cafe, or you were in your vehicle, the Wicked Brew is a great place for a very good quick cup of java (an Americano in my case).  Which I am drinking here as I wait on my sons (on the trail, of course, they had to wait on me : )  Photo by Conor.

I forgot how long a drive (around 90 minutes) it was to the Squaw Flat trailhead from Moab.  But, Conor and Will caught a little more time of sleeping, so no big deal.  We got on the trail and we were happy.

I had decided that we would do a loop hike to Druid Arch.  I’d never been there before and that seemed like a good reason to go.  The first 3-4 miles or so led us over some trails we had covered the year before.  But, it was still fun.  And the weather and scenery were perfect.

This looked strangely familiar.  But, the needles are always imposing.

Nice variety of hiking.

Conor keeping himself amused as he, and Will, most likely wait for me to catch up.  The La Sal mountains in the background were a constant sight.

The air, as I said, was very clear.

Will taking it all in.  There was much to look at.

Conor and Will doing a little off trail scrambling.  The rangers don’t mind if you go “off trail” (on most trails).  They do ask that you stay off of the sand and it’s biological soil covering (see this on the Canyonlands web site http://www.nps.gov/cany/naturescience/soils.htm) as much as possible.  Due to all the slickrock, it’s pretty easy to comply.

Hmmm.  Another rim to look over?  How different : )

Springtime wasn’t quite as advance as I had hoped, but there were a few flowers along the trail.  Mostly of the yellow variety, but I happened upon these Indian Paintbrush.

We saw a lot of lizards this trip.  They are quite speedy.

Nice views everywhere.  Photo by Conor.

We got to go through the “slot” again.

Inside the slot.  Photo by Conor.

Exiting the slot.  As can be seen, we are getting pretty close to the needles.  Not far from here we hit an intersection of trails and turn to follow a canyon that runs parallel to the needles.  Photo by Conor.

Conor taking a water break after we exited the slot.  Even though the air temperature was really nice and cool, it did get a little warm in the canyon bottoms.  And, it was dry.  Next time we will bring more to drink.  We didn’t really suffer, but if we had had more to drink, it would have been nice.  Of course, there was a reason we ran a bit short.  More on that later.

We finally began a long trek (4 miles maybe) up the canyon.  While interesting, it did get a little tiresome.  Particularly as I said, it got a little warm.  Not hot, but warm.

We had a little fun on some one taking the high road while the others took the low road.  The trail would normally follow the canyon bottom on the straight sections, but sometimes would cut across sections where the canyon took a loop or curved a little.  So, here are Will and I taking the “high road” while Conor took the low road (that is, he just stayed down in the canyon bottom).  Photo by Conor.

Mostly it was easier to just stay low.  And, more interesting due to the strange rocks you might have to scramble around.  But, sometimes I’d take the high road just to add some variety (and to help ensure we didn’t miss the trail exiting the canyon).

Zoom.

View of a portion of the Low Road.  Photo by Conor.

Eventually the canyon began to narrow and climb.  This made for a lot more interesting hiking.  And more variety.  Including the occasional pool of water.  This section of the canyon was actually quite spectacular.  Both in views, and in hiking/scrambling up it.

We did see several children along the trail.  As can be seen here, you would want to keep a close eye (or actually contact) on your smaller children at this point.  The trail, in this section goes right up to the edge of this cliff.  There are other places along the trail where you really need to watch the children.  That said, in general it is very easy walking with only few sections that are “tricky”.  You may need to carry extra water for them unless they are used to carrying packs themselves.   I would recommend talking to a ranger prior to taking children on a trail to learn of any specific issues for the trail you are considering hiking on.  Even then, caution never hurts.  Photo by Conor.

There is a pool of water down there.  I leaned over the edge trying to get a shot of it.

More pools.  Obviously, these pools of water are not extremely common.  This is a very dry and arid country.  So, seeing pools of water is kinda nice.

Pool and variety.  Fun area.  Photo by Conor.

Interesting little section.

Will decided to run it.

Slightly different view.  I decided NOT to run it : )  Photo by Conor.

Will taking his own route around another pool.  Photo by Conor.

I think this is the last steep pitch before we were able to see Druid Arch (as an arch).  It’s quite a bit more of a climb than it looks like in this photo.  Photo by Conor.

Our first view of Druid Arch (where you could actually see that it was an arch).  To say the least, Druid Arch was spectacular.  An amazing sight and well worth the hike.  Actually, the hike itself was worth the hike.  Druid was the cherry topping.

Will, Conor, and some strange old guy.  All quite pleased with themselves and the day.

Ah yes.  Druid.  As in “Druid Arch”.  Well worth the hike.  Conor and Will decided to head for the base of it.  I hung back and just took photos.

It’s a big area here at the head of the canyon.  There isn’t an “easy” way out of here, so you have to go back the way you came.  Might have to look into that next time.  Here is Conor heading back for a bit of lunch in the shade.

Zoom.

There isn’t much between him and the bottom of the canyon at the point where he is walking.  I think (maybe; there is one other location that they could have been) those people are standing in the place where we had our lunch break.  The “pipe” in the bottom of the photo is a little steeper than it looks and no one had any thoughts about going down it as a “short cut” back to the trail.  Photo by Conor.

Had this raven out circling us.  Looking for some food, I would guess.  Probably hoping someone would walk over a cliff and provide a large tasty meal : )  Every time I go on a hike and take photos I learn something.  This hike I learned that 1/250 of a second is a nice general speed setting for scenery photos.  And, that’s normally what I do.  But, when you add people, or animals, you need to up the speed or it gets a little fuzzy.

Conor and Will taking it easy in the shade.  It was almost too cool in the shade.  One reason being that there was a strong wind.  At our backs.

Little bit of a self photo, plus arch, plus reflection of surrounding rocks.  Neat.  Photo by Conor.

I got them to turn around for a group photo.

But, we knew we had to head back.  The sun was going down (it was around 3pm) and we knew that we had to cover an additional mile (or more) on the way back due to taking a different trail most of the way back to the car.  Yeah, only a mile.  Or so.  This is looking back down the canyon (the trail is buried down in that twisting slot).  We had two miles to go back down the way we had come before we hit the intersection of the different trail back to the car.  Photo by Conor.

Zoom down the canyon from a slightly different location.  Not exactly a “slot canyon”.  But the trail is definitely deep inside a winding corridor of rock.  Really a cool hike.

I didn’t get a real good photo of the last steep pitch prior to the arch.  So, here is a photo as we head back down.  It was a whole lot nicer going down than climbing up.

Here is another photo of a rather steep pitch (yes, I missed a LOT of interesting photos on the way up due to concentrating on keeping up with Will and Conor without falling : )

Now, you might think “gee, big deal, they give you a handle to hold on to and a ladder, no problem….”.  And, you’d be wrong.  It’s all in the angle of attack.  And this one is just a tad bit trickier than it looks.  Particularly when going back down.  Everyone took these pitches “nice and easy”.  Be a tough hike out with a twisted ankle (or worse).

One thing about this country, and a valid reason for going slow and looking around, is that you can pass by really interesting looking rock formations, views, etc., in the space of a few steps.  So, one minute you look up and around.  Put your eyes back on the trail as you cover a few yards, then take another glance around. If your eyes don’t happen to look around at just the right minute, you could miss views like this.  This is actually Druid Arch seen from down in the canyon before you can see that it is actually an arch.  I don’t remember seeing it, myself.  Photo by Conor.

While we had been up enjoying Druid Arch, the weather had changed.  We knew that there was a forecast for rain the next day, but high clouds started blowing in from the west and the breeze had picked up.  I thought there might be a chance of rain, never a good thing when you are in the bottom of a canyon, but it never developed into much.  It did cool things off in the bottom of the canyon a bit.  That was acceptable by all.

So, we were walking back down the canyon to the intersection with our next part of today’s loop (only a mile further than if we just headed back on the trail that we followed from the car) when we noticed this rock cairn.  Or, set of cairns.  Or, field of cairns.  Well, anyway, an interesting set of rocks.  Photo by Conor.

Zoom.  Photo by Conor.

Remember what I was saying about missing something by just not happening to look up at the correct time?  Yes.  We had all just walked up this exact same trail a couple of hours earlier.  And none of us could remember seeing this cairn art.  Anyway, a couple of us were drawn to add our work to the piles of rocks.  It’s just one of those things, really.
Each person approaches such an endeavor slightly different from another.  There is no “right” way.

Will just decided to start his own pile from scratch.

Conor decides to add to some pre-existing structures.  So, put the final touches to them, so to speak.  I think he ended up with grains of sand.  It’s quite possible that we could come back next year and find that their work had survived.  Or, we could find an entire city of cairns.  Hard to say.

Eventually we continued on our way.
I think I have mentioned the variety of hiking.  Sometimes you are on top of a rim, along the edge of a cliff in a canyon, walking along a flat stretch of sand, deep in a slot big enough for only one person, or climbing under and around house sized boulders in middle of a streambed.  Here we encountered some large sandstone slabs of rock to add to the variety.

We finally got to the trail intersection and headed up into the unknown (my true reason for hiking).  Unlike some of these other trails, I’d never been on this section and had absolutely no idea what was ahead.  This made things just a little tricky as far as making sure we stayed on the trail.  And, making sure we got back to the car before dark.
For one thing, I could tell that this trail was not nearly as well traveled as some of the other trails.
Another issue is that the “trail” was not really marked by any signs other than the occasional small rock cairn and some boot prints in the sand.
Also, while on the other trails we had seen the occasional group of people.  On this section we saw no one.  In fact, we saw no one from the time we started up the “unknown” trail until we reached the car.
The final, and most vexing, issue is that the trail had a habit of cutting across curves of the canyon.  “Well Geoff”, you might say, “just stay in the streambed and don’t worry about the little side trails that would cut across a curve and then end up back in the streambed” (we saw and encountered this literally hundreds of times).
The problem is, at some point, one of those little side trails may NOT come back to the streambed.  But, instead, the trail may take off away from the stream towards some crack in the cliffs, or distant rim.  And, we’d never know about it because there wouldn’t be a sign saying “Look dummies, this is actually a turn off.  Take this trail now or you will lose yourself in the never ending streambed.”  Or, something to that effect.  So, I took a lot of side trails “just to be sure”.

Some time after starting up this new section of trail we encountered a nice section of wet sand, pools of water, and even some meadow types of environment.

Zoom

In another week or two this will be a little patch of greenery surrounded by red cliffs.

Another curve or two (or five or ten; hard to say) went by.  The canyon opened up a little.  I didn’t see any cairns and the boot imprints in the sand dwindled somewhat.  I decided to cut up the bank to see if the trail was somewhere above us.  My sons said they would continue along the streambed and look for any cairns up ahead.  Our standard trail blazing process.

Hmmm.  Yes, here is a trail.  Well, I’ll just follow it and see where it goes back down to the stream.  But…. it didn’t go back to the streambed.  Instead it continued to slant towards some distant rims.

I scanned the rims and saw it.

“Hey Conor, Will, I think you should come up here to the trail.  It’s not going back to the stream this time.  It’s heading towards some rims.”
“Dad, just how sure are you?”
“Well, uhhhh, pretty sure.  I mean, how about if I told you I can see a ladder leading up to the edge of the rim.”

And, yes, off in the distance, was the small image of a ladder leaning up against the rim’s far wall. (the ladder is easier to see on my web site here http://geoffw.smugmug.com/Utah-Trail-Hiking/Moab-Conor-Will-Spring2011Day2/16702211_k9KKww#1263769813_NNsLrcn-X2-LB ).
Or, try this http://geoffw.smugmug.com/Utah-Trail-Hiking/Moab-Conor-Will-Spring2011Day2/i-NNsLrcn/0/X2/dsc_4292-X2.jpg

They didn’t answer, but I could see them start up the slope towards me.

Zoom.  This was just sooooo cool.  : )

Will approaches “the ladder” (kinda still in the distance).

Some old guy also approaches the ladder.  I was only able to keep ahead of them for about 3 minutes after telling them about the ladder.  Will had already passed me.  I was probably wondering if the parking lot was just on the other side.  “Hey Will, can you see the car yet?”  : )  Photo by Conor.

Once they passed me by, I stopped long enough to catch a glimpse of the canyon that we had hike up to this point.  Nice clouds.

Neat place.  And, we had it all to ourselves.

They start up ………

Zoom

Conor goes up.

And then, it was my turn.  Hmmm.  Just how sturdy is this thing?

Ooookaaaaayyy then.  It’s been here a while.

But, I made it up.  I have to admit, I didn’t step in the middle of the rungs.

Then I turned around to face a nice little set of stone steps still going up.

Zoom.

Cool stuff.  One more look back at the way we came.

Different view.  Photo by Conor.

Uh, ready yet, dad?

On the other side of the “pass”, there was another ladder going down.  This one was metal. That was nice.  But, it was a little loose.  Not nice.

The rim walk.
For about the next 2 miles (I really don’t know exactly how long), the trail stayed high up on the rim. So, pretty nice walking (no sand), awesome views, but just about as straight a line as the letter z.

But, just unbelievable views.

In many ways, outside of getting to Druid Arch itself, to me this was the highlight of the hike.  An amazing rim walk.  Uh, well, a LONG amazing rim walk.  And it came to pass that during this section of the walk we discovered from a few signs (at intersections with trails that did not show up on my map) that our 5 mile hike back to the car turned into an 8 (or more) mile hike.  Since we had figured that 5 miles would get us back to the car just before dark, we quickly determined (calculus and advanced trig) that making it back to the car before dark was going to be, ummmm, difficult.  Oh well, these things happen.
Along the rim.

And then we hit the crack in the wall.  At my web site the photo is large enough that you can see the notched log that Will used to get to the top of that rock.

Will surveys the surroundings prior to entering “the crack”.

Just how nice were the surroundings?  I mean, anything worthwhile to look at?

Yah.

Will advances.  Photo by Conor.

Then Conor enters the unknown.  I didn’t take time (well, didn’t really have time) to try and get the correct settings on my camera, so pretty poor quality.  But, shows what we saw.

Zoom.  You had to watch where you put your feet.  There was a wide crack that ran up the floor.  It looked pretty deep.

Conor takes a photo of me “thinking about it” : )  The footing and the crack in the floor is evident.  I thought I saw a dwarf peering back at me from deep inside the crack at one point.  I moved quite quickly through and out to the other side.  Photo by Conor.

Here is our view on the other side.  Nothing looked too familiar.  But, it was pretty.  I tried not to think about the time.

Eventually we dropped down into the canyon bottom.  Nice change in scenery.

As can be seen, we lost the sun.  Hmmm.

Then we entered a section (for approximately 30 miles : ) of flat sandy trail.  If it hadn’t been so late, and my feet hadn’t been quite so sore, it would have been more enjoyable.  That said, it was the magic time of day, so I ignored my feet and tried to grok my surroundings.

Mmmmmm.  Awesomeness.

Believe me, it was even more incredible than these photos can show.

Photo by Conor

We crossed over the last ridge prior to seeing the outline of the parking lot in the distance.  It was getting fairly “darkish”.  But, pretty.

Needles.

Sunset.

Sunset photo by Conor.

Well, we got back to Moab and found a great place to eat (and, it was open : )  Awesome Italian food.  And the beer was very good also.  Pasta Jays.  Great place.

No one had any trouble sleeping that night.

- Geoff Weatherford

In the late afternoon of Monday, April 4, 2011, my two sons, Will and Conor, and I rolled into Moab, Utah.  Probably close to 5 pm’ish.  The drive from Fort Collins had been relatively quick and uneventful aside from the normal occasional highway work closures (lost at least 30 minutes to that) and one wreck (lost another 30 minutes there).  But, the weather was pleasant and I saw that the Spring season was a “little” more advanced from when we had been to Moab last year.

Before I go any further in the trip’s description, here is my standard comment. Please check my photo galleries here for all the larger and higher quality photos for this trip. The photos in the gallery are a quantum leap in size and quality compared to the little teaser photos I put in this site’s trip narrative (and there are more of them). In addition, I have two other links that will help locate the area if you are interested in making the hike yourself. A Google Earth map can be found here. You will need to use the scale bar on the left side of the Google map to help zoom in or out to help locate the area based on where you live. (If you want to see all my trips, this link will direct you to a Google map that shows ALL my trips.) In order to help you with the actual trail itself, you can use this link to view a road and trail map (care of the official Arches Nat Park website) of the Windows Arches trail.Please note that all links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, please see a Microsoft Live map below. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from my home in Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (and move the map around) to get more detail. Just make sure you don’t close the Microsoft “My Places” editor that pops up with map. If you close the editor (it is small and you can use/scroll/zoom the map without the editor getting too much in the way) without first saving the new location, the location button will disappear. If that happens, just close the map and click on it again on my web page.

We made sure that the motel room was ready, unloaded our gear into the room, and then headed to Arches NP.  The entrance to Arches is just across the Colorado River about a mile north outside of town.  We pulled into the visitors center, talked to a nice ranger about available hikes, and I purchased my normal annual parks pass.  I did learn one good thing.  Next year I would be able to purchase a non-expiring (well, not until I die : ) pass for $12 (good for all National Parks).  Quite the deal.

The sun hadn’t set so we drove to the Windows section of arches.  This is a set of arches that has a bit of a looping trail and some great views.  Our plan was to “bag” these arches and then head back to Moab and get something to eat.  I think all of us wanted to get out and do something after being cooped up in the car for 7 hours.

We found that the arches, and the area itself, were very nice.  I encourage anyone to visit this set (5 or so) of arches.  Particularly if you have children.  Short easy trails take you from one arch to another.  I’d recommend doing it in the early morning or late afternoon when the light is at it’s best.

Even without the arches, the views were quite nice.

Some of the arches only make themselves known as you walk the trails.  From the parking lot, you could not see this arch.  But, once you walked up the trail a ways, the new angle exposed the window.

Zoom.

Other arches were pretty much in your face from the get go. Conor and Will standing in one of the most accessible.

Several zooms.

This is a superb place to come, find a seat, and just sit and look around.  And continue to look for a long time.

Many of the arches had smaller arches (or, holes?) next to them.  Some of which could not be seen until the angle was just right.  In the photo below, there is a smaller “window” just to the left of the main window (easier to see on my smugmug website).

Vantage points (for photos or just for looking around) were numerous and easy to get to.  That said, some of them become quite exposed so care with small children would be wise.

I didn’t need to worry about Will and Conor.  They are quite at home on the rocks.

The sun was setting.  Making the lighting both excellent and challenging.

In the distance, the snow covered La Sal mountains were always visible.  A major storm had recently dropped a lot of snow on them.  This was similar to last year except that, unlike last year, we encountered no patches of snow on the trails.

As the sunlight continued to wane, the air temperature began to cool off.  I was getting just slightly chilly, but did not want to leave.  It was just too nice.  And, I couldn’t catch up to Conor and Will.

Due to the time, we did NOT take the local primitive trail, which I do not think compared in either severity nor length to some other primitive trails in Arches.

Kind of a strange sunset.  For most of the time (when I had my camera ready and was not driving, of course) it had little “color” to it.  But, it still made for some nice scenery.

Looking away from the sun you could still see the rocks glowing orangey-red.

Taking it all in.

Looking back at the parking area and beyond.

Zoom.  I’ve lightened it up a little so the detail can be seen. We didn’t have time to walk over to some of those other smaller arches that can be seen.

I think these may be a view of some of the petrified sand dunes.

Zoom.

Came upon a “pro” photographer (up above and behind Conor) who was all bundled up (smart) with his camera on a tripod (as per normal, I left my tripod at home) waiting for the perfect color.  He told us he had been there for hours.  He may have been coming for days just to capture the special “look”.

I don’t normally see Will and Conor just sit/stand around looking.  But on this trip there were a few times that we were all quite stunned by the views.  Or, maybe they are just waiting for me to finish up so we could go eat : )

Couple of smaller “windows”.  One is fairly evident.  The other is visible, but hard to make out.

We took our time gazing for a while, and then headed back to the car.  I grabbed a couple of more photos in passing.

Note that all these photos will be much better looking (well, such as they are) on my web site.  Due to the small size of the photos above, I encourage you to visit this trip’s photos on my smugmug website here.

Anyway, we headed back down to Moab as the sun set (I witnessed several photo opportunities on the way down that were stunning sunset views, but decided it had already been a long day : )  We parked the car back at the motel and walked a couple of blocks to our feed hole for the night.  Zax.  Great place for dinner.

- Geoff Weatherford

The weekend after doing the la Poudre Pass hike, I decided to head for a slightly different hiking location and environment.  I knew that, more than likely, any above timberline areas were probably still under snow.  But, some of the upper valleys should be getting hike-able.  And, there was one area that I’d been trying to hike to for years that should be snow free.  Shipman Park in the Rawah Wilderness Area.  After years of repeated efforts, I’d never been able to reach the place.   There were a couple of places like this that my attempts to reach had been unsuccessful.  Just poor planning.   Just bad luck.  Right.

Before I go any further in the trip’s description, here is my standard comment. Please check my photo galleries here for all the larger and higher quality photos for this trip. The photos in the gallery are a quantum leap in size and quality compared to the little teaser photos I put in this site’s trip narrative (and there are more of them). In addition, I have two other links that will help locate the area if you are interested in making the hike yourself. A Google Earth map can be found here. You will need to use the scale bar on the left side of the Google map to help zoom in or out to help locate the area based on where you live. (If you want to see all my trips, this link will direct you to a Google map that shows ALL my trips.) In order to help you with the actual trail itself, you can use this link to view a topo map (care of the great National Geographic TOPO program(http://www.natgeomaps.com/software.html ) that one of my sons purchased for me : ) of the McIntyre Creek trail. Please note that all links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, please see a Microsoft Live map below. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from my home in Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (and move the map around) to get more detail. Just make sure you don’t close the Microsoft “My Places” editor that pops up with map. If you close the editor (it is small and you can use/scroll/zoom the map without the editor getting too much in the way) without first saving the new location, the location button will disappear. If that happens, just close the map and click on it again on my web page.

Anyway, the good thing is, the trailhead is relatively close to Fort Collins, CO.  An hour or two closer than some of the hikes I tend to hit that are located in the Zirkels west of Walden, CO.  From Fort Collins, you head up Poudre Canyon (Hwy 14) like you were going over Cameron Pass.  Then, shortly before reaching Chambers Lake, you take a right (heading north) on the (nicely) graveled Road 103.  This follows the Laramie River all the way to Woods Landing in Wyoming (which is on Hwy 230 on the way to Walden, CO).  However, for this hike you don’t want to go to Woods Landing.  You only go 10-15 miles before turning to the left on Rd. 190 which heads to Glendevey.  Before reaching Glendevey you will find the Link-McIntyre trailhead and parking area in the same area as Browns Park campground (just after it if I remember correctly). The traffic was rather “light”.

Here is what the parking area looks like.  I took this at the end of the day after the clouds had rolled in.  The day actually started off clear and sunny.

The trail doesn’t begin on the McIntyre Creek .  Well, actually, there is a trail that “does” begin on McIntyre Creek, but you need to go further down the road to Glendevey.  I have no idea what that trailhead is like.  There may be some guest ranches and cabins located there.  From the trailhead I started at, you have to hike up and over a ridge to get to the creek.  But, it’s a nice walk.  It’s also the trailhead for the “Link” trail.  So, the McIntyre trail heads to the right (from the parking area) while the Link trail will be heading to the left.  The signs were pretty clear.

The trail reaches the Rawah Wilderness boundary near the top of the ridge.

The rise in altitude provides you with a great view of the Laramie River valley.  If you take the drive all the way down to Woods Landing, it’s a very scenic drive through rolling hills of grass and sage with the mountains off to either side.  Once you get past the Glendevey turnoff, it’s all private land next to the road.  There are still forest access roads along the way that you can turn off to get to more camping and hiking areas.  Some lead to roads that are 4WD only.

Zoom.

After getting over the ridge, here is a view of the approach to McIntyre Creek and the bridge.  On the other side of the bridge the trail intersects with another trail that is used by horseback riders coming up from Glendevey.  They merge and the trail then heads up stream.  It’s been a while, but I think Glendevey is an area that has one or more guest ranches for people to enjoy.  Possibly even a bed and breakfast.

View up the creek from the bridge.  The high point of spring runoff had passed, but it was still very full of fast moving and cold water.

The trail hugs close to the creek for close to 4 miles or more.  The valley is somewhat narrow and does not offer any long scenic views, but it is a nice hike in and of itself.  It varies between pine and aspen groves as you walk along it.

There was also the occasional meadow.  In this case, hard to see in this photo, the lush meadow was covered with blue columbines.  Later in the heat of the summer it may have lots of red Indian Paintbrush.

Here is a close-up of the Columbines.

Of course, I just happened to be at the meadow when the sun was behind a big cloud.  But, it was still very nice.

The trail began to flatten out a little.  It never was very steep, always just a gradual uphill hike alongside (most of the time) the stream.

Oh well, the sun finally came out in order to let me grab a photo of the yellow flowers.

There weren’t too many streams that the trail crossed.  There is a long ridge alongside of the trail with no real valleys.  This was one of the few.  Looking back down the trail.

When I got to this point of the trail, I could tell things were going to change.  Not sure if this fence was for cattle or horses.  Probably to keep the cattle from heading back down the trail once they had been brought up to the pastures for the summer.  I saw no cattle, nor any sign, so I’m not sure if they still pasture cows up here in the summer or not.  Depending on the wilderness area and local national forest rules, I sometimes see cows up in designated wilderness.  Once I saw a large number of sheep way up high in the Uintas back when I was in college.

On the other side of the fence I came across an intersection of trails.  This is looking down McIntyre Trail 996 (so, from the main trail you would looking to the left; kinda southish) as it heads south towards (eventually after a long curve) the long line of ridges and peaks of the Rawahs (note, the Rawahs are NOT a part of the continental divide).  Trail 996 crosses Housmer Creek just down the trail a short ways (the McIntyre Creek had already turned and headed to the south, you will meet up with it again if you take this trail to the south).  From the top of the Rawah ridge, you can take several different routes, including a loop back to the Glendevey area.

Close-up of the sign.

I did not take the trail (996) south, but stayed straight on the trail I had been traveling on.  This is looking up the trail I’ll take as it goes past the sign (at the top of my leaning staff).

After only a little ways further, the country began to change dramatically.  Hmmmm.  Left or right?

Ahhhhhh yes.  I love meadows.  As it turns out, Housmer Park is a fairly nice park.  Not huge, but it is a little longish.  Quite pretty.  And, I hit it before the clouds moved in.

That said, there is a bit of a mystery here with the trails.  Now, the other photo showed a nice split in the trail.  At the split there is this sign.  The split to the right is indicated as being the McIntyre Trail.  However, if you look on older maps, the trail supposedly follows Housmer Park, going in the same direction, but on the opposite side of the park (so, the left hand split).  I decided to take the trail the sign was indicating as the “correct” trail.  It was obviously a used trail and looked as if it was going in the correct direction.

That said, I believe that somewhere over on the other side of the park, that left hand split in the trail is meandering up the park also headed in the same direction as where I wanted to go.  In fact, later I’ll show evidence to that effect.

By the way, please remember this photo.  Because I will return to this exact same place on the way back down the trail and show you something that is the beast to this beauty.

The trail I took slowly gained altitude above the park as it wound it’s way through the trees.  For quite some time you could see the park below through openings in the pine forest.  But eventually the trail wandered through the trees sorta paralleling a low ridge.  It did this for quite some time until it appeared the trail was actually on top of the ridge.  According to my map, Shipman Park was just over the ridge.  But the trail didn’t go that way.  I wasn’t too concerned because there was plenty of old trail sign (trees that had been cut and moved off of the trail years before) and new signs such as the blazes on the pine tree in the photo below.

And then, not too surprisingly, I came to a junction with another trail coming up from my left.

Since the trail seemed to be guiding me that way, and my supposed direction of travel was that way, I bore to the right at the junction.  Once on the merged trail, I looked back down it.  Gee, notice the difference between the size of that trail and the one I had been following?

My guess is that this is the trail that followed the “other side” of Housmer Park.  It’s fairly obvious they don’t want people using it anymore.  Perhaps it is considered too disruptive of the meadows.

Anyway, I continued on even though it seemed to me that I was now heading away from Shipman Park (and starting to gain altitude again).   From the map I knew that eventually the trail would begin to climb towards the main ridge of the Rawahs and connect with a trail that followed that ridge.  Not where I wanted to go today.  At this point I stopped and tried to figure out my next move.  Yes, that’s a patch of snow.  I saw some other larger patches just before reaching Housmer Park.

What I did was look around and slowly, carefully watching where I was going so I could get back to the trail, wander into some very marshy open clearings to see what, well, to see what I could see.  And, I found an opening that looked back towards where I “thought” Shipman Park should be.  And, there, in a very wet distance, was Shipman Park.

Zoom.  So, I get to see the long lost fabled Shipman Park.  Barely.

The view wasn’t the best and I thought that I might be able to “cut” a trail going into the park (from the trail I had been following) by walking through the edge of the trees until I got a better view.  Well, I never did cut a trail, or, anything resembling a relatively recently used trail, but after a little bit of bushwhacking I did get to the point that I could see all the way down the park.

Zoom.

Pretty big park.  But, it was very wet.  Did I mention that?  Yes, wet times two.  From the photos you can’t see that everything was under several inches of water (at least were I was standing).  It was difficult to move up the slope out of the water due to all the down trees.  And, I was getting just a little tired.  What I need to do, if I come back in on this particular trail, is get off the trail a little early and try to hit the park on the east side (to the right in these photos).  For some reason I think I will pick up a trail over in that area.
Also, I’ll come up in September and hope that it’s dried up.  This may make it possible to walk out in the park itself instead of up the slope and climbing up and over all the trees. Even if I find a trail, it appears that it will be covered with downed trees because I never saw any “newly used” trails.  I kept a very close eye on my surroundings on the way back down and saw no real side trail taking off and going towards Shipman Park.  Kind of strange.

Zoom again.  Pretty neat looking place.  I think the meadows keep on going past where you can see from this point.  Quite extensive.

There are a couple of other ways to get to Shipman Park, but I’m not sure any of them are any shorter.  That said, I may “investigate” them just for the fun of it.

On the way back down I stopped to take one more look at Housmer Park before hitting the long trail down the McIntrye Creek bottom.
And, encountered a horde of the “beasties”.
Yeah, I haven’t touched on these, but this hike reminded me that where x = y, Rawahs = mosquitoes.  I hit this trail, and the parks, probably at the peak of the mosquito season.  How bad was it?
1.  Well, I put on mosquito repellent as soon as I got out of the car.
2.  I met one couple who were almost running back down the trail towards their car saying something to the effect “…xxxx these xxxxxxx mosquitoes……..”.  They were kinda laughing about it, but still.
3.  I met one other twosome close to Shipman Park headed up to the top of the ridge saying that they hoped to get up higher and away from the bugs.  They were grinning and bearing it pretty well.
4.  How bad was it?  Here is what occurred when I stopped at Housmer Park for a quick snack.  The photos on my web site show them in glorious detail.  But, you get the idea.  I hope.

So, when you go to the Rawahs, take mosquito repellent.  A head net wouldn’t be a bad idea either.  Just in case.

After getting back to my care, I headed back up the Laramie River valley to where it connects with Highway 14 (Poudre Canyon).  On the way back to Hwy 14, following the Laramie River valley, I stopped a few places to snap some photos. In the early summer, it’s a special green.

Zoom.  Still a fair amount of snow in the high country.

The upper Laramie River valley, a few miles prior to Chambers Lake, is very nice.  Once you get within 5 – 10 miles of Chambers Lake, you are back in the national forest and can pull off the road and camp anywhere.  You can find some very large meadows that make for nice camping along this route.  Very popular for large families, and groups of families.  Of course, you may want to have some mosquito repellent.  Just in case.

Zoom.  There was a pretty nice breeze here.  So, no mosquitoes bothered me while I enjoyed the view.

That’s all, folks.  Pretty interesting hike.  Except for the little beasties, a really good hike.  The upper meadows are the best, but the entire hike is very pleasant.  Not the hike to do if you want grand vistas with far away scenes.  More close in and personal like.  Again, be prepared for bugs.  Later in the summer the mosquitoes may diminish, but the horse flies may be just as bad.
Best time of year would be early fall (but, try to do it just prior to hunting with guns season opens).  That’s my plan for next fall, at least.

- Geoff Weatherford