Posted November 8, 2009

(Day 2)

Note – See Day 1 here.

The next morning we got up to blue sky.  According to Will, it rained hard in the early morning.  I never heard it since I was dead asleep, but it was wet outside.  We packed up and hiked down the street to the Sagebrush, stuffed ourselves on a great breakfast, and then headed back to Bear Lake.

Today we would be going up the North Inlet trail.  In the photo above, Will is waiting for me at the trailhead.

OK.  Let me zoom in a little.

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.

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. 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. (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 (a low quality one, care of the great National Geographic TOPO program that one of my sons purchase for me : ) of the Bear Lake to Grand Lake trail. All links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, below is a Microsoft Live map. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (move the map around) to get more detail.

This trail starts off following a dirt road that goes through private land.  You don’t have to worry about cars, but you do need to stay on the road.  That said, it’s still very pretty (and flat : )  Here is Will checking out some horses.  I spent a few minutes thinking about “borrowing” a couple to ride up the trail a ways.  But, they hang people for that, so it didn’t seem like a good thing to do : )

After approximately a mile, the road passes close to the North Inlet stream itself, and starts to enter an area called Summerland Park.

Summerland is an extensive series of large connected meadows that continue for another mile up the valley.  Just a touch of fall colors at this altitude.j

Shortly before you leave Summerland Park, the road ends up at a private residence and the actual trail begins.  And then you eventually start to go “uphill”.

But, the day was nice, the altitude was still low, and we were still powered up from our nice breakfast.  So, great hiking.

Zoom a little.

Three and a half miles up the trail you reach Cascade Falls.  Lots of people take this hike just for a day hike.  So, seven miles total.  This is taking a look down the falls.

Close up of some of the “bowls” that have been eroded into the rocks just up stream.

The trail goes through quite a variety of types of hiking and scenery.  I thoroughly enjoyed this section (obviously, it’s flat : )

It was difficult to keep myself going sometimes.  There was just “neat stuff” all along the trail.  Sometimes I just had to pass on by.  Other times I tried to quickly capture the scene.

This was what you see from the trail.  The reason I happened to look that way is that I thought I caught a glimmer of movement out of the corner of my vision.  More than likely, a hobbit.  They like these types of places.

And then Will spotted some deer in front of us along the trail.  He let me get in front and the deer (normal RMNP animals) were kind enough to allow me to take several photos.

They were a mom and a couple of yearlings.  The yearlings still had their spots.

They finally took off in a hurry.

But gave us one more look as they crossed the stream below us.

Passed a nice little lake along the way.

Will takes a break.

Zoom.

That was our last real break before we hit “switchbacks set 1″.  See, we’d been gaining altitude all this way.  But somewhere between seven and eight miles you hit a trail junction. One way (to the right) goes to Lake Nokoni.  The other way (our way : ) continues towards Bear Lake.  And, shortly after the trail junction you hit a “bunch” (as in, “lots”) of switchbacks.   One  good thing is, you do start to see some of the surrounding mountains as you quickly gain altitude.

And, the best thing is, you finally enter upper Hallett valley.  Which is just about worth the entire hike to visit.  I kid you not.  We took a long break there.

Will saying, “can we take a break?” (or, more likely, just waiting for  me : )

Will has just told me that we are NOT at Bear Lake yet.  That we have 10 more miles to go.  I’m wondering to myself “just how long would it take me to get back to Grand Lake and have Will come pick me up after he gets to the car?”

So, this is what a rather large number of switchbacks is going to take us  up and over during our next little phase of today’s, ummmm, walk.  Of course, it still keeps going “up” way past what can be seen here.  Luckily, I was not aware of that little detail at this point.

If we hadn’t been quite so tired, and attempting to conserve our energy for the switchbacks, we would have meandered over to this very nice little stream.  Great place to lie back on the rock and bask in the sun with the water rippling down for some background music.  Sigh.  Maybe next time.

I take one more look back down the trail and consider Grand Lake once more.  I mean, it’s all downhill.  Will says “no.”

So, we move on.  And really, this little valley was just amazingly pretty.

Will stopping to read the sign that says “Mountains don’t care………”  (if you die).  Or, something to that effect.  Something about being careful about storms above timberline.   Hmmmm.  But, it’s such a nice sunny day.  What storms?

Small stream that feeds that waterfall where we took our lunch break.

Little zoom on the waterfall itself.  I could have spent a lot of time here.  One small little remaining flower of summer can be seen down in the bottom left hand corner of the photo.

My dallying at the little waterfall has allowed Will to move quite a bit ahead of me as we move up the side of the valley.  Kinda a cool trail.  Just that it goes up.  A lot. And we’ve already hiked around 10 miles.  But it IS extremely pretty.  I attempted to keep my mind on that part.

Zoom in a little.  Yep.  Thar he goes : )  He actually does stop and let me catch up.

And then, the clouds came.  Just as we were getting up to treeline.  Of course.  Photo by Will.  He was doing some photo work along with the videos he was capturing.  And, uh, waiting for me to catch up : )

Zoom in a little on that.  Another photo by Will.  Cool clouds.

This is looking the other direction.  Actually, once we get “on top” (sorta), we headed that way.  The trail goes right around the head of the valley.  Another photo by Will.

Didn’t take a lot of photos for a while.  For several good reasons.  One, it was really windy so I was concerned with keeping my feet on the ground.  Two, I seemed to be getting a little slower the higher up the trail we went.  I think it may have been one of those time/space warpy thingies.  Third, it actually started spitting a little rain on us (yes, there was thunder also).  Here is what it looked like when I could get my camera out.  Will is up ahead.  Kinda distant.

Here, I’ll zoom in a mite.

So, this was rather a lengthy section.  Right around this time (as it was beginning to look like we might die : ) a couple things happened.  One was we actually had several hikers pass us.  Going “down” the trail and looking quite happy about it.  We had met one the other day when we were going down and he was going up.  Really nice guy.  Told us about the wolves he heard.  But, hey, really a nice guy (he made sure we knew about a big rock we could crawl under on top if the storm got too bad).
Of course, there was the motorcycle/hippy looking people we met on the trail also the day before.  And, they were nice people.  Just, you know, maybe not like the people you meet walking around in downtown Fort Collins.
Kinda off Topic:
Generally, almost always (fact, during all my hiking, I can’t think otherwise) the people you meet on the trail are not your, ummmm, normal type of people.  And, as time goes on, it seems that being in the back country is less and less normal.  Just a fact of society at this time .

(Way off topic – Well, ok, when I say “not normal”, no we aren’t talking about Alaska or the Canadian bush, that that’s a whole different world.  Or Universe.  Those people aren’t normal AT ALL.  And, whenever I say “not normal”,  I don’t mean that in a bad way.  Been there done that sort of stuff and people are a little different in the real bush.  But then, neither is the northern bush country your normal lower 48 hiking country.  So, you have to be a little, uh, “different” in the northern bush.  Or, you know, you wouldn’t be there.  Makes sense : )

Back to Kinda off topic – But, any ways, before you all sidetracked me, you generally always (as far as I can remember) meet pretty nice people.  There was that one guy I met with a couple of small kids up in the Zirkels that was packing a 44 magnum and, but, that’s another story……..  And, of course, you do hear about “bad things” happening back in the bush on CNN (although, not near as often as in some city).  So, sure, pays to be prepared.  But, in general, I meet really nice, and interesting, people in the bush (both tame bush country and wild bush country).
Back on Topic:
Where was I?  Oh yeah.  The second thing was, well, I was standing with Will (me gasping, he waiting) and happened to look out across the tundra to a bunch of sticks.  Only, when I looked a little closer, the sticks turned into a good sized bull elk.  Probably the highest I’ve ever seen an elk.  He was most likely just being happy at being able to look down on his little kingdom.  Probably figuring he was pretty safe up high and all.  During the summer, that location would also be pretty nice as far as having a wind to keep the flies off of him.

The trail actually ended up going around and above him.  So, after around 15-20 minutes, I was able to look down on him.

Little hard to see?  Yeah, this is one time I wished I had a longer zoom on my camera (Will had gone ahead with my other camera that had a much bigger zoom).  But, it was fun.

Will was moving fast.  Which was actually a good thing.  It kept ME moving (just not the “fast” part : ).  Which, eventually, meant that we got to our car before dark.

Zoom a little.

But, we lucked out.  The worst of the storm missed us.  It cleared up.  And we discovered that we were in an awesomely pretty area.  This is heading right past the upper lip of the valley where we had stopped for lunch.

Looking back down it.  Yeah, I should have walked out to the edge.  But, I believe my thinking was I’d lose altitude.  Bad thing.

Just great views any which way you looked.

I do mean, EVERYWHERE I looked.  I wished I could just go check it out instead of walking past.  But then, where I was walking was pretty nice : )

Zoom.  Yeah, looks good to me.  Wonder what’s over there?

Then, all of the sudden, I knew we were getting “close”.  Well, clos-er, at least.  I caught a glimpse of our buddy juusssst peeking up over the far horizon.

Yeah, not the way we were headed, but Longs Peak was over there.  Not too far away.  I reeeaaaalllllly felt like having a little stroll over that way.  It just looked very interesting.  Oh well.

Caught up to Will.  Again.

It was eerily beautiful on top.

Here is a good one by Will.

Another one by Will.

Have to say I was getting a little tired at this point.  Although it doesn’t look like it, the trail was still gaining altitude here.  Very slowly.  But, enough that I could feel it.  At just over 12,000 feet, and close to 15 miles or so, it didn’t take much effort to use up any energy I had.  But, I still enjoyed it.

The trail was in very good shape.  Except, of course, where they had tried to “fix” it.  For some reason, every so often they had pulverized rock into small pieces and then used that “gravel” to cover sections of the trail.  Unfortunately, those gravel pieces were all around the size of a tennis ball.  Sometimes a little smaller.  Sometimes a little larger.  And it “killed” our feet.  Here is one of the tools they used to do that (accidentally left behind, I think).  Had to have been carried by a pack animal (non-human) because it was around 6 feet in length and 50 lbs in weight.

Close up of the working end.

And here is an example of a section of trail that had been fixed.  Most of these sections seemed to be ignored by hikers who went to either side to keep from walking on the “gravel”.

So here is what I mean by still going uphill.  Will is up ahead.

Here.  I’ll zoom in a little.  He is still hard to see on these reduced resolution photos.  He is up at the 3rd set of cairns from where I am taking the photo.  If you aren’t familiar with this type of country, you might think that the number of those rock cairns are “overkill”.  But, if you’ve ever been on a trail like this in less than good conditions (dark, rainy, early snow has hidden the trail, whatever), then these cairns could be a life saver.

And here we are.  Very close to the top of Flattop Mtn.  Note that when I say “we”, I mean that loosely.  Will cut across the trail and shaved off half an hour or so.  There is actually a trail there to do that, but it’s old and I missed it.

So, when we got to the top, Will had me take some interesting photos.  There is actually a pretty big drop off behind him that looks down the Emerald Lake (and eventually Bear Lake) gorge.  But the cliff is really a little further away than it looks like in this photo.  But then, that’s the point : )

Here is one looking down the gorge behind Will.

Will took a photo of the old man staggering around the area : )

“Will, yell at me again.  I’m lost, dazed, and confused.  Where are you, Will?  Oh, look.  I’m on the trail.  Heh.  Nevermind.”  Another photo by Will.

Not sure what the name of that mountain is in the distance.  But it looks familiar.  Since the sun is headed down, the light is MUCH better now (just after 4pm) than yesterday when we were at this same point (at noon).

Zoom a little.

Even more.  This is actually a pretty good view of the final ascent section of Longs Peak.  I think you cross from the left flank (from that 90 degree section) and go straight up the ridge that is pointing at us in the photo.  I think.  Anyway, cool hike.  May need to do that next summer with Will.

As we started down the other side, we could see a forest fire back behind Lumpy Ridge.  They got it out pretty fast.  I think they called it the “Dunraven Fire.”  But, I could be wrong.

Zoom.

There is a coyote in this photo.  See if you can find him.  Not that hard.  But he/she does blend in pretty well.  Not that far off.  Just above the trail in the photo.  Obviously, you can see it a lot better on my Smugmug site.

Fall colors.

Sun’s last rays.

Heard a lot of pikas, but this is the first one I actually saw.  And it was within a foot of the trail : )  Packing away winter supplies.

It’s all downhill.  Although, after a while, that got to be pretty painful on the feet.  We need new boots.  There is a reason Will is off to the very edge of the trail.  That was where the smoothest surface was to walk on.

Emerald Lake and, in the distance below Longs, Glacier Gorge.

Zoom.

I didn’t take many photos after this point.  We did make one stop for a bite to eat after we got into the trees.  But otherwise we kept moving.

Will made one more video after we got back to the car.  You can see it at my Smugmug site.
All we could think about was getting our boots off and finding a place to EAT.  We did the boots immediately. But put off eating until we got back to Fort Collins.  We went to the Rio and it was very good.  We were both surprised they let us in because, as Will put it, we looked like a couple of bums. But, after all, it is Fort Collins. Will literally “breathed in” his burrito.  It was gone that fast.  Along with two bowls of chips.  And he was still hungry but too tired to really care : )

All I can say is, really truly an awesome trip.  Just about perfect in every way imaginable.  I think this photo (taken at the beginning of the trip) tells it all.

Really great hike.  Just make sure you start early (both days), and have good boots.  You don’t need to try and go fast, just a nice steady pace allowing for stops for eating, taking photos, etc.  I STRONGLY recommend that you “train” for the hike all summer.  Do at least 2-3 hikes of 10-15 miles (and lots of smaller ones).  Do one hike of at least 20 miles.  After all that, you should be good to go.

Also, you might want to try and do it early fall when the thunderstorm activity has diminished from the normal summertime routine (bugs are gone, too : ).  Otherwise, expect to get hit by a storm or two.  They could be quite, uh, exhilarating in nature above timberline.  There is always a danger of lightening strikes during the thunderstorms.  If it’s that bad, huddle under a rock or tree for a while.  At least for the first day, you can start early enough to be below timberline by the time the day’s thunderstorms usually hit.  Usually.

- Geoff Weatherford

Day 1

Posted October 13, 2009

Every once and a while, you do something really smart.  And then, just to keep things in balance, every once in a while you do something really, uh, NOT smart.

And then occasionally, you do something that you’re not really sure was smart or not smart (ok, dumb).

On Monday, Sept 7 (Labor day : ), Will and I began our “we’re not really sure if it was a smart thing to do but we had fun mostly and lived to tell about it” epic hike.  The short version of our trip was to start hiking from Bear Lake, RMNP, hike over the continental divide to Grand Lake, and spend the night there in a motel.  Around 20 miles.

And then, the next day, hike back to Bear Lake by a different route of another 20 miles.

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.

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. 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. (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 (a low quality one, care of the great National Geographic TOPO program that one of my sons purchase for me : ) of the Bear Lake to Grand Lake trail. All links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, below is a Microsoft Live map. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (move the map around) to get more detail.

The day started off with extremely nice weather.   We got to the Bear Lake parking lot at around 7:30 in the morning.  Plenty of time to find a good parking spot.  It didn’t cost anything to leave the car there overnight, but I did have to get a permit from the back country ranger station (back at the park entrance).

Bear Lake is around 9,475 feet elevation.  The first “leg” of the hike is about a five mile hike up to the top of  Flattop mountain at 12,324 feet in elevation.  Guaranteed to warm you up : )

The fall colors were just starting to show off.

Now, I’ll go ahead and tell you right at the beginning, you see a lot of Longs Peak on the way up the trail.  So, obviously, I had to take some photos.

We really didn’t do a lot of this.  Sitting that is.  Although Will did a little more than me because I had to take photos.  Which means he had to wait for me to catch up.  Well, taking photos is my excuse and I’m sticking with it.  That said, the trail up to Flattop Mountain is pretty much of a steep walk.  For five miles.  And, occasionally I had some trouble finding oxygen to pull into my lungs.  But, there are some very pretty sections, so we enjoyed it on this first day (not so much the following day : )

Bierstadt Lake close in and Estes Park in the distance

Will probably looking at Longs Peak in the distance.  You get some great views down into Bear Lake and Emerald Lake along the way.

At this particular point, we are still quite frisky.  Hallett’s Peak behind Will.

Pretty sure I’ve seen that peak before.  This shot was a little bit of a strain.  Into the sun and I could have reduced my exposure a bit.

This frames it pretty nicely.

Weren’t too many flowers left.

Little closer shot.  It was a tad breezy.

The upper tundra was definitely showing fall colors.

As can be seen, the weather was very nice early on.

So at this point, we though we had it licked. Hey, we’re above timberline, right?  How much further can it be to the top?  Well, as it turned out, quite a ways.

I went for quite a ways without taking a photo (probably close to an hour) to get to this point from the last photo.  But, this is getting fairly close to the top.  Maybe 20-30 minutes (I was not exactly running up the trail at this point).  Nice view back towards Estes Park

This is a shot looking up the trail.  Great clouds.  If you ride horses up to this point, there is a place to tie them up.

Will sitting down near the sign that marks the top of Flattop Mtn.  Waiting on me, of course.  So, if you are keeping track, we’ve done slightly less than 5 miles out of the total 20 we need to do before it gets dark. Our immediate route is pretty much the direction the camera is pointing.  The trail kinda curves a little over to the right towards that, uh, what they call a glacier around here.  Or, permanent pile of snow.  It called Ptarmigan Point and provides a really nice view.

Here ya go.  You can see the trail winding off into the distance.  It keeps going for quite some ways.  We spent approximately an hour and a half crossing the alpine tundra after leaving this sign.  But, the views were such that the time wasn’t a problem at all.  Also, the sign is giving directions to a place just down the trail where trail splits in two.  One continues “straight” (kinda NW, what you see in the photo) and is the Tonahutu Trail.  The other goes to the “right” (kinda S) and is called the North Inlet Trail.

Here is looking back at Hallett’s Peak.  Quite a number of the hikers that we met were continuing towards the top of that peak.

And, even though my camera doesn’t have a super zoom lens on it, here is a zoomed view of some of those hikers (they really stand out on my smugmug site; see link above).

Passed a little snow pack on our way to Ptarmigan overlook.

Nice red algae.

Here we are at the trail juncture I was talking about.  I’ll be coming down that trail towards this spot tomorrow.  But not Will (more on that later).

And here is the view from Ptarmigan overlook.

Slightly different perspective.

So, here we go.  It would be difficult to get lost on this trail.  It wasn’t as well maintained as this section all the time, but you didn’t have to worry about getting lost.  Although I did wonder (quite often) exactly “where” the trail was leading.

Almost lost in the surroundings, Will spotted a marmot out sunning itself.  And, in addition, being entertained by strange looking creatures walking past.

Here is a little bit of a zoom.

Nice photo that gives us a bit of a reason to keep moving along.  That’s Lake Granby in the distance with the edge of Grand Lake (our destination for tonight) just barely showing near the bottom of Lake Granby.

But for now, we head in a slightly different direction.  Which was a bit unsettling because, well, I mean, the lake’s over thataway.  Why are we going thisaway?  O well.  The scenery was nice to look at : )

At this point in time, we didn’t care about the direction (mostly).  The day was lovely (if you didn’t look too far to the west : ), our surroundings were glorious, and, if you haven’t noticed, the trail was flat.  Which was a really good thing after the almost 5 mile climb up Flattop Mountain.

Hmmm.  I could have sworn I put the pizza in here.  Dad, did we forget the pizza?

Great view of the upper reaches of Tonahutu Creek.  And look.  Yes, I do believe its DOWNHILLLLL!  Yeah, we got it made now.  Downhill all the way to Grand Lake.  Got this hike licked.  Heh, heh.  We hiked through some very pretty upper meadows just below here.  Most of them were to the left.  Looked like a great place to camp and explore.  As did that far valley just above Will’s head.  Lots of really cool country.  We had seen no one on the trail (or off the trail) since leaving the trail juncture back at the top of Flattop Mountain.  And this was Labor Day.  All the people, or the vast majority, were all down on the roads in the park.

Hmmm.  A sign.  Gee.  What could it say?

Oh.  Twelve miles?  Well, that IS a ways.  In fact, we haven’t even gotten half way.  No biggie, it’s all downhill.  Right?  So, no big deal. And, actually, we were doing pretty good.  We had made very good time.  Even with me taking photos.

So, we start the big downhill.  Actually kinda a nice section of the trail.  Great view.  Pretty surroundings.  I had a hard time not taking a photo every ten feet.

You can see the trail winding across the steep upper slope of the head of the valley.  There are some old switchbacks above the main trail that you can barely see.  Not sure from what.  Almost too well defined to be a game trail.

We crossed a lot of little springs along this section of the trail.  Doing their part to try and keep the last flowers of summer in full bloom.  And of course, after two and a half to 3 hours of above timberline hiking, we were back in the trees.

This was a pretty fun area.

Now, here is a photo of the upper Tonahutu valley that we would be going down.  Some where down there, about 5-6  miles or so, are Big Meadows.  But before that, a rather long hike down a pretty valley.  You can see (barely) one small meadow down the valley.  I stopped there and took a photo looking back up at where Will and I are currently standing.

Into the woods we go.

Will is scouting out a big rock for us to sit on for a real lunch break.  I’d like to come back some day and hike/camp up in that valley up above boulders.  The main valley we hike down is off to the left.

Taking a well earned break.

Will took my camera for a spin and nabbed a photo of the old guy.

After leaving our lunch spot, we came onto a nice set of small waterfalls.

Little closer.

Will seeing how high he can bounce on the logs.  Note the poncho in his hand.  It rained on us for a few minutes, and then stopped.  That was the only rain we got that day.  Although, it was cloudy going down most of the valley.

Just the waterfall by itself.

The trail runs through a few small meadows on the way down to the “big” meadows..

Like I said, here’s looking back up the valley at where we had descended into the treeline.

Zoom.

Ran into a nice set of waterfalls going down a series of “bowls”.

Close up.

So, nice section of trail.  Not a lot to see as far as vistas, but just pleasant.  Except that we’ve been on the trail now for around 6 -7 hours and getting a little tired.  Got another 3-4 hours to go.  But we didn’t know that : )

Starting to get close to the big meadows area.

Stopped and took a break next to the stream.

Now we’re at the upper reaches of the Big Meadows.

The trail follows the outside curve of Big Meadows.  So, it almost looks like you are circling them during the hike.  But, you are not.  However, it is one heck of a big meadow.

Will wondering if the meadow will ever end : )

But, slowly, the meadow grew narrower……

Until we were back in the forest.

Now, at this point in time, I’m fairly sure that we entered a time/space warp.  Or, possibly a portal into another dimension. By the map, we only had another 4 plus miles to go to Grand Lake.  But, due to the strange anomaly that we encountered, our best guess is that we actually traveled another 437 miles over approximately 65 days before we got to Grand Lake.  It was………………..the Twilight Zone.  Really.
However, even in the shadow land that we had to cross, it was still very pretty.  But, we were getting just a tad tired.

The people in this strange twilight zone built their waterworks out of wood.  As with this long snaking pipe made of wood.

Zoom.

It went on for miles.

Eventually, after months of hiking, we came to the fair town of Grand Lake.  Around 6 pm at this photo.  So, about 10 hours (Earth time) on the trail.  Not bad.

Sorry.  No photos of Grand Lake.  My primary goal was to “find bed”-”eat”-”fall in bed”.  So, thoughts of taking photos kinda became non-existent.

It was close to another mile of hiking into downtown to our motel (the Lone Eagle, I think; nice management, nice place, good price, they even said they would just leave the key out for us if we got in after 9pm).  Once we ditched our backpacks in our room, we walked slowly (much easier without the packs) back to the Sagebrush for something to eat.  Great place.  Awesome food (even if we hadn’t been starved out of our minds it still would have been great food : )

Once we got back to our room, Will stayed up watching TV for a few minutes.  I took a quick shower and went to bed and fell asleep immediately.  Actually went to bed early enough that when I woke up at 6:30 am the next day I felt like getting up.  Ok.  I was a little stiff.

To be continued………………..

- Geoff Weatherford

Posted August 22, 2009

(Yes, I was late in getting this trip posted.  My next postings will be about some great hikes I’ve been taking this summer : )

So, it’s the middle of Fall in the rocky mountains (northern Colorado).  Where to go for a hike?  Especially if don’t get an early start, and you don’t want to play hide and seek with the hunters (nothing against hunters, just don’t like hiking around lots of people carrying guns and looking for an animal to shoot : )

The answer?  RMNP (Rocky Mountain National Park).  The trails and roads are a lot quieter than during the summer (well, except for one small issue, but more on that later).  So, RMNP here I come.

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. 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. 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. (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 (a low quality one, care of the great National Geographic TOPO program that one of my sons purchase for me : ) of the Moraine Park to Cub Lake trail. All links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, below is a Microsoft Live map. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (move the map around) to get more detail.

One very cool part of RMNP is Moraine Park.  Great big wide open meadow.  Lots of great views.  Nice hiking for people of all ages.  And, this time of the year, if you are really lucky you may see a couple of elk walking around.  That is, a couple of hundred (or, maybe thousand, anyway, lots).  Yep, they all start coming down out of the high country, getting away from the colder higher elevations.  And, of course, it’s the rutting season.  So, if you are real lucky, you might see some elk fighting and/or hear them bugling.

Oh, and no insects.  Nice.  So, I took off and got up to the park relatively late in the morning.  Decided that while I wanted to hike Moraine Park, I didn’t want to do it the normal way.  So, I pulled into a parking lot near the end of the meadow and headed to a what looked like had to be a trail that followed the edge of the moraine (old glacial till) along the south side of the big meadow.

I did find a lovely trail.  Better yet.  I had it all to myself all the way to where it intersected with the main trail that goes to Cub Lake.  So, a great mile or more of trail that wound it’s way along where the pine trees intersected with the meadows and streams.
And, sure enough.  Elk.

Closer.

Yes.  Lots of elk.  And, some really nice views of the mountains to the north. The Lawn Lake area.

Close up of that.  If you look closely, you can see a couple of horse riders moseying along in the lower left section of the photo.

Elk at a watering hole.

Anyway, I kept moseying up the trail.  Moraine Park is actually quite long (as I found out on the way back), but there was plenty to see.  Nice late fall foliage and colors (in a fallish way : )

The trail is easy to follow.  There are usually two routes to follow.  One lower down in the meadow grass, which could be somewhat wet depending on the time of year.  And another a little further up in the trees.  Both are nice.

At this point I’m getting fairly close to the intersection with the main Cub Lake trail.  It will be coming in from my right behind the trees in front of me and up against the rocks in the distance.  Also, note that the afternoon is already present.  The shadows are already starting to grow.

At this point I’ve intersected with the main trail.  And will slowly start gaining altitude.  Very slowly at this point.

A little zoom of the farther mountains.

As I round one corner I see that the elk are again close by.  This bull had quite the collection of cows.  Or, maybe it was the other way around.  Anyway, hard to see here, but he only has one side of a normal set of antlers.

Some of the rest of the herd taking it easy.

And then, amazingly enough, ha ha, I saw more elk.  Only this time I would be walking “thru” the herd.  They were situated right on the trail.

Kinda cute youngster.  Not that I’d want to get close enough to pet him/her.  No thanks : )

As I said earlier, if you want to see elk.  This is the time and place to do it.

I’m heading right up the valley.  Eventually up through that patch of leafless aspen in the distance.

Zoom in on that patch of aspen.

This is the trail section that actually goes through the aspen.  Be real pretty in the fall with the leaves all golden.  Not too shabby right now.

Cub lake at last.  Everyone was gone for the day.  So, I had it all to myself.

I hiked up the trail to where it left the lake at the upper end (see above; the trial heads through that rocky looking area on the other side of the lake).  You get to an intersection of trails.  One way will take you down to the Spruce Canyon trail (which loops back to the Moraine Park parking lot or go the other way to Fern Lake).  The other (to the left) will take you back to a LOT of different trails and loops.  Including Mill Creek Basin and Hollowell Park, Bierstadt Lake, and Bear Lake.

Strange guy I met above Cub Lake.

And a slightly more scenic overview of Cub Lake.  Gee, is the sun heading down?  Guess it’s time to head back to the car.

Over the top of the aspens just below the lake, I spot my car in the distance.  Moraine Park is that big meadowy looking thing in the distance.  And the car is parked on the far side of the meadowy thing.

Well, its kinda hard to see.  For some reason.  Here, I’ll zoom in a little.  So, if you know just where to look………

Ok.  Better zoom in a little further.  So, it’s in that parking lot that’s at the foot of that hill.  When I get down there, my trail follows the edge of the meadow/park on the right.  Guess I should start hiking.

Caught a little color on the way down.  Small spring, leaves, red rose hips.

After I get a ways down, I snap a photo looking back at the mountains.  Getting a little darkish.

Zoom a little.

Eventually I’m able to look out over Moraine Park.  And, of course, the elk

Zoom in on some.

Spooked a few elk at o’dark thirty about halfway back down Moraine Park.  I lightened up the photo quite a bit.  It is actually quite dark.  They had a hard time figuring out just what the heck I was.  I get a lot of that : )

The moon and venus (?) just over the moraine itself (you can barely see it; it’s just a barely black shadowy line right below the moon).

Zoom just for the heck of it.

Ah, the trustworthy steed awaits me : )

Really nice hike.  Great for kids of all ages (well, you can shorten it up for the really small kids).  And, depending on the season obviously, a cool way to get pretty close to the elk (without having to kick all the other people out of the way : )

- Geoff Weatherford

Posted July 12, 2009

Will and I were able to coordinate our work schedule to allow for us to take a hike together on Sunday, June 7, 2009.  Quite an, ummm, interesting hike.  One could even use the work “epic” : )

The question was, where to go?  June 7 is normally too early for hiking anywhere close to timberline due to snow.  And this year is even snowier than what we have been having during the last few years (supposedly our “drought” has been broken by the amount of precipitation this year).  So, I looked for a hike that was somewhat lower in elevation than timberline, but still above the local foothills.  I decided on the Colorado River Trail system in RMNP.  Specifically, the one that goes up to Lulu City.  It’s located on the “other side” of RMNP (Rocky Mountain National Park).  So, we would go over Trailridge Road in addition to hiking.  Always an interesting ride.

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. 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. 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. (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 of the Lulu City trail. All links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, below is a Microsoft Live map. The red tack shows the general location of the trail from Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode and zoom in or out (move the map around) to get more detail.

We got to the trailhead relatively early.  Although cool, the sky was mostly sunny.  It was a little breezy.  Not too many people seemed to be using the trail.  We took a quick “pre-hike” video and took off.

It’s always a good idea to take a quick glance at the message board.  Just in case there have been reports of rampaging mountain lions, etc.

With that out of the way, we took off.

One thing that was immediately apparent was how “green” everything was.  The bushes and aspens were just getting their leaves and had that glowing greenery that you only see in the late spring/early summer.  Other than dandelions, there were very few wild flowers in evidence.  Too early.

The trail starts off as almost a highway.  This lower section of the trail is heavily used by people from neighboring campgrounds.  All kinds of people (young, old, big, small).  Not many of which were evident today.  I think we saw a total of 6 hikers (two groups).

Once pass the initial half mile or so, the trail comes back to tracking close to the Colorado River itself.  Just to be sure everyone is on the same page, yes, this is the same Colorado River that you’d see on the outskirts of Moab, UT. and that continues down through the Grand Canyon.  This is the headwaters of that river.  Photo by Will.

As can be seen, the first couple of miles of the trail are relatively flat.  It crosses through a lot of small meadows.  Quite a bit of the time you can hear, but not see, the river off to the side.  But, there are numerous side paths leading down to the river.  So, this first part of the trail is a great children’s hike (aside from falling into the river itself, there aren’t too many areas of concern).  Photo by Will.

Once you get a mile or less up the trail, you can begin to see the mountains in the distance.

Being RMNP, there are always plenty of elk around.  At this time of the year the elk are even more evident than during the mid and late summer as they are unable to get up into the high country until the snow melts.  Will, being in the lead, was the first to see a small herd of grazing elk.  They were right next to the trail.  Will makes his move to sneak up on them.

Yes, the sneak looks to be perfect.  Photo by Will.

Noticing the strange two legged animal, the elk pauses its grazing for a minute.  Photo by Will.

We move on.  As per normal during the early season of hiking, water is everywhere.

But in general, the trail, and the day, is almost idyllic.  Almost too good to be true.  Hmmmm.

Here are some aspen that are just leafing out.  Pale pale green.

The mountains were starting to close in on the river valley.  Still some meadows, but not as big as when we started the hike.

Tall mountains in the distance from the trail.

New leaves on the aspens.

Some rather bright moss (fungi?) on the rocks.

This marmot was gathering grass for its den.  It actually ran right past (within a couple of feet) Will as it crossed the trail.  Kinda gave us a glance, but mostly just ignored us.  I was still learning my camera, so missed getting a photo as it popped in it’s den right next to us.

Like I said earlier, water everywhere.  We were treated to a lively chorus of frogs as we went past this small pond.

Well, ok, just a couple of small patches of snow.  Nothing to be worried about.

Really, dad.  This trail is a piece of cake.

In another week or two, that meadow will be carpeted with wild flowers.  For now, the grass is just turning green.

Shipler cabins.  Well, used to be cabins.

Most of the trail was clear of downed trees.  But, we did climb through a few.

The clouds continued to get a little darker.

And then, it started snowing.  Somewhat surprising.  But, hey.  You have to expect this kind of weather in the mountains.  Particularly early summer.  So, we put on our ponchos and went forward.

My hat serves a purpose besides keeping the sun off my face.  Is this “epic” enough, Will?  : )

Will heading up the trail.

Shot of the Never Summer mountains in the falling snow.

And then, the snow stopped and the sun started to shine.  So, parkas off.  At about the same time, we reached Lulu “city”.  Or, it’s remains.

There were a few old remains of some small cabins.  Really not much to see (or, that we noticed).  Looking at the sign, it doesn’t look like it ever got too big.

I talked to a man I met on another hike a few weeks later.  He was mentioning a mining scam that had bilked thousands of people out of money (lots of money) back in the 1800s.  He thought Lulu City had been one of a few such scams all run by the same person.  People never learn, I guess.

The sun came out, it was a very pretty spot, so we stopped to eat lunch.

Will and I had decided that we would reach Lulu City and then make a final decision on where to hike.  We could continue up the Colorado River to what was called “Little Yellowstone” and “La Poudre Pass” (somewhat a mis-nomer), or, we could head up to the Grand Ditch and loop back to our starting point.  We decided on the latter.

After a quick lunch we continued up the trail.

The weather continued to be sunny and the views were quite nice.

After a short hike, we crossed the Colorado River.  Quite a bit smaller here than in Moab : )

We reached a fork in the trail.  One final time for a decision.  Note the sunshine and bare ground, please.

Should we hike to the Little Yellowstone, and then back down to the car via the same trail we had come up?  Or, up to Grand Ditch and a loop back to our car?  We decided on the loop.  Note that the “one mile” to Grand Ditch on the sign.  It turned out to be one of the longest “one mile” sections of trail I had done for a long time.

And then, we hit snow.  Both in the air and on the ground.  We ended up hiking on snow, solid drifts of snow without any ground unlike what you see above, for half a mile or more.  Uphill.

We eventually reached an area that was a little confusing at first (missed spotting a sign in the snow).  Picked the wrong way to go and ended up at a camping spot.

Turned around and found the real trail to the “ditch”.  Now, let’s talk about the ditch.  So, as far as I knew (not that I’d ever looked into it) the ditch was some old thing that had been used to move water to a mine.  Or, maybe to Grand Lake.  Anyway, I figured we’d see a grass covered dry old canal with a trail along one side.  Man, was I in for a surprise.

Nope.  Not dry.  And not small.  And the trail was in very good shape.  For a road.  So, I finally put 2 and 2 together and came up with something close to 4. This “ditch” actually runs alongside the Never Summer Range (so, the big mountain range running along the western side of the upper Colorado River).  It crosses all the streams coming out of the mountains and collects them into the ditch (instead of letting the water go on down to the Colorado River).  The water then runs North (opposite my original thinking) to Long Draw Reservoir.  And from there on down to the Poudre River.

Yep.  It takes this PACIFIC watershed water and routes it over the continental divide.  Again.  OVER the CONTINENTAL DIVIDE, and into the ATLANTIC (by way of the Gulf of Mexico) watershed.
“………In 1890 a project called the Grand Ditch began. The ditch is a 16.2 mile water diversion project. Streams and creeks that flow from the highest peaks are diverted into the ditch, which flows over La Poudre pass, delivering the water into the Atlantic Basin for the use of eastern plains farmers. The ditch wasn’t completed until 1936. The ditch diverts between 20 to 40% of the runoff from the Never Summer Mountains and significantly impacts the ecology in the valley below. In May 2003 a 100 foot section of the ditch breached causing the water to cascade down the slopes and into the Colorado River. The flood left a visible scar on the mountainside………..”See this link for more information.
“……Considered an engineering marvel at the time, the channel began sending water eastward in 1890 with 8 miles of ditch across a high mountain pass, dug by hand primarily by Japanese and Mexican laborers. By 1936, with the help of machinery, the ditch extended to 14 miles, leaving what some visitors consider an unsightly scar through the heart of Rocky Mountain National Park…………..An immediate effect of this water theft was a reduction in the fish population in the Colorado River. The water flow was cut in half, not only limiting the number of fish it could support but also causing an increase in the water temperature, which further endangered the fish……”  See this link for more information.
This would never be achievable in the present times.  Well, maybe after 100 years in the courts and approximately 23 Trillion Dollars.  There are some folks that would like to see the Grand Ditch removed from RMNP.

So, we started walking up the road keeping our eyes open for a sign that would indicate the trail that headed back down to the Colorado River.

The road does allow for some good views of the mountains to the east.

And, some of the Never Summer mountains to the west.  Note that there were a number of trails that take off into the Never Summer range to the west.  Including Thunder Pass.  We never did see anyone else on the road.  Actually, we never saw anyone from the time we left Lulu City to just before reaching the Colorado River.

Grouse in a pine tree along the road.

After experiencing a rather intense snowstorm (so much so that I could not take a photo during the majority of the storm),………

……… we found the trail that heads back down to the Colorado River.  It was really a pretty trail, but the weather, and our sore feet, conspired against us achieving full enjoyment : )

We did run into a few patches of snow, but nothing like the section of trail that led up to the ditch.

This was a rather interesting log bridge.  It was covered with a thin coating of wet ice.

Which I found pretty interesting when I tried stopping halfway across to take some photos of Will.

But, I made it across.  Took a photo looking up the stream that you can see coming down the rocks below Will.

This section of the trail takes a VERY winding route to get to the bottom.  However, there aren’t any steep sections and, while longish, there are a lot of pretty sections.

Eventually you get to a part of the trail that is hanging on the side of the mountain as it descends to the valley floor.

And you start to get some good views whenever you can find a spot where the trees thin out a  little.  This is looking up the Colorado River valley.  So, the part that we covered during the hike to Lulu City.

If I zoom in on that, the clearing is, I believe, where Lulu City is located.  But, I could be mistaken.  Lulu City might be further up than that.

YES.  The valley floor.  Will is trucking as I try and capture the incredible “greenness”.

More.

Crossing the Colorado River.  We intersected with our original trail which completed the loop.

The parking lot beckons.  Gee.  I wonder why it’s wet. : )

Anyway, an almost EPIC hike.  Saw a lot of nice country.  Nice green country.  And enjoyed (so to speak) our last snowstorm before summer hit.  I’ll have to come back sometime and check out the other trails.  This will be a very good area to hike in during the fall.

- Geoff Weatherford

Posted June 13, 2009

Last year, September 20, 2008 to be exact, I decided to take a trip into an area of RMNP (Rocky Mountain National Park) that I’d never hiked in before.  It was fall and, if I was lucky, I’d see a few nice colorful aspen up in the high country.  One thing I wouldn’t see is a hunter.  Another reason for heading into RMNP at this time of year.  Nothing against hunters or hunting, but I just don’t like hiking around an area where people may actively be shooting guns if I have an option.

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. 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. 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. (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 North Inlet trail. All links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, below is a Microsoft Live map. The red tack shows the general location from Fort Collins, CO. You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode.

I cruised over Trailridge road and the weather was looking quite nice.  Not many clouds and pretty mild.  It took me a few minutes to find the trailhead, but at least there was plenty of parking.  I actually had to park in an upper “overflow” area that is located only a short walk from the main parking area/trailhead.

Once I locked my car up and had my pack on, I headed back down to the trail head parking area.

And a quick glance at the sign.  I normally, if it’s at all convenient, try and take a quick look at the trailhead message boards.  They usually have a nice map to look at (in case I don’t : ), some background history of the area, and any emergency messages of trail closures, etc.  This one was a typical well done park message board.  I read it over and took off down the trail.

The first part of the trail follows an old road that, as far as I could tell, was only partially used.  There is a sign that says to stay on the first so many miles of the trail as it passes through some private land.  But, since it’s all very pretty looking, and no traffic to speak of, it’s a very pleasant walk.  This first few miles of the trail is an excellent place to take very young children.  They can run up an down the road and not get into any trouble (and hopefully sleep good that night : )

The trail/road goes through some aspen for a while and then breaks out into some rather extensive patches of meadows.  This is looking back towards the aspens after exiting them.  They were “just” barely starting to get a little fall color.

Here is a photo of, I think, the lower North Inlet.  The trail/road goes right past it and allows for a great picnic area for a short hike with children.

Part of this hike takes you past Summerland Park.  This is a rather large expanse of meadows.  During this time the road will disappear and you will be on an actual trail.

Ah, here is a bit of Fall color.

Zoom in on that a little.

Another shot of some early fall color with the meadows in the background.  There is a bit of a story about those meadows, but that is for a different part of the hike that I will describe later on.

Here is a view of the lower part of the trail.  Still quite nice.  As in not too rugged or steep.  And pretty scenic due to the aspens.

Eventually, after 2-3 miles, the trail does begin to gain altitude and pass through more evergreens than aspens.  Although you will still pass through small meadows farther up.  This is looking back down the trail.

After being away from the stream for a time, the trail comes back closer.  Here is a view that is a short distance down from Cascade Falls.

Here is a photo above Cascade Falls showing some nice, if small, waterfalls. Note that Cascade Falls is approximately a 3.5 mile (one way) hike.  So, 7 miles round trip.  Nothing for teenagers (except boredom : ), but a little long for younger children under 9 years of age (obviously, it all depends on the child in question).  There are places along the trail where you should watch that younger children don’t get too close to the edge.  No extreme cliffs, but definitely some high places.

The reason that I don’t have a photo of Cascade Falls is because, from what I could see, there is only one really nice place to view the Falls from and it was occupied by some other people.  My plan was to stop on the way back down and take a photo.  Little did I know : )

As I stated, you do pass some more meadows along the trail.

And the trail does pass a small lake or two.  At this time, I didn’t know that I would be hiking up that far valley that can be seen in the distance.

Ptarmigan Creek crossing.

And then, yes, I got a glimpse of some high country.

Because of that small glimpse, I made a little error in judgment.  What happened next is I came on a trail junction.  One trail led to Lake Nokoni  (to the right) and the other led up to an eventual crossing of Flattop Mountain (and down into Bear Lake).

Well gee.  If I head up left, and gain some more altitude, maybe I can get a view of the surrounding mountains.  And take photos.  And see neat country.  Yeah, but then I looked at the return sign.

Hmmm.  Somehow, according to this sign, I had come 8 miles already.  Now, I’m thinking this sign means Grand Lake, the town.  So, maybe I hadn’t really come 8 miles.  Maybe only 6-7 miles from the trailhead parking lot.  The reason I wanted to think that way is that 8 miles times 2 is 16 miles round trip.  I know that for me that would be a longish hike.  So, should I start back now?  Well, uh, probably yes.  Did I?  Nope.

Onward I went.  Up a large number of well maintained switchbacks.

Now, the good thing is that, yes, I did start to see the surrounding mountains.  The bad thing is, why, I’ll just wanted to go a little further and see more.  So, I kept going up the trail.  But, the views were getting to be quite nice.  As you can see though, the clouds are beginning to increase.

The higher up the trail I went, the greater the scenery became.  I couldn’t stop now : )

Here is a view of a mountain in B and W.

Same mountain as a couple photos above, but a little higher.

I’ve gained enough elevation to be able to look down into upper North Inlet valley.  No trail into this area, but it sure looks interesting.

And then………. the switchbacks were over.  Well, golly.  I guess I should just go a little further and see what happens.

Well, what happens is you enter into a very nice looking upper valley.

If I zoom in, you can see the trail on the other side zig zagging its way up to the ridge above timberline and towards (eventually) Flattop Mountain.  So, obviously, I just had to keep going.  Just a little further.

Yeah, this was a neat place.  And not very crowded : )

In the distance, once I got a little further along, I could see a “waterfall”.  Right in the middle of the photo.  Don’t worry, I’ll get some close up shots.  Also caught a few rays of the sun peeking through the clouds that lit up the far ridge a little.

Turning around and looking back down the valley gave me a nice shot.  B&W

Zoom a little on that peaky thing.  In color.

Now, I’m not sure why, but this “waterfall” fascinated me.  So, here are a series of photos.

Met this old guy up there.  I think he was following me. Weird.  Looks familiar : )

The sun came out (which didn’t happen again for a while).  So, grabbed some “sunny” photos.

Looking down the valley again.

And then, I happened to glance behind me and saw that I was being “spied on”.

She was quite curious.  Played around with me for a while.

And then she left me : )

O well.  And then it came to me.  Ummm.  It’s getting rather late in the day.  And.  It’s clouding up again.  And.  I’m kinda a long ways from the car.  Equals.  Time to go.  So, down I headed.  I mean, you know, how bad can it be.  It’s all downhill right?

Well, let me tell you, it was a long hike back out.  I got about half way back and ran into a little “weather”.  Lots of rain and some hail.  Quite a bit of thunder and lightening.

For a short time, I actually had the sun come out again.

But it clouded up again and started raining.  Pretty much kept up on and off the rest of the trail down.

Got down to the beginning of Summerland Park and fog was rising out of the meadow.  I’m pretty sure I saw a hobbit running back into it.

My adventure had not ended.  As I was headed through the Summerland Park section of the trail, I happened to hear a couple of bull elk fighting.  They were right next to the trail in the meadow.  And they were clacking those antlers together with great vigor.  I watched them for a few minutes.  It was too dark to try and get a photo unless I wanted to walk right up to them.  Which really didn’t seem like a good idea at the time : )

So, I hiked another couple of mile through the darkness (hoping I hadn’t missed a turnoff on the trail).  And finally made it back to the car at about 0-dark-thirty.  Opened the car up and threw my things in the back.  Took off my rather soaking wet boots and socks and slipped on some dry shoes.

But, again, my adventures were not over yet.  Because I had to go back over Trailridge Road to get home.  And guess what I found on top of Trailridge?  Yeah, another storm.  Early wet snowstorm.  Whiteout conditions at night on top of the world (with a little bit of a drop off to one side : )  So, I spent around 30 minutes going at (I kid you not) 5 miles per hour traveling down the center of the highway very slowly.  It turned to rain when I hit treeline on the other side.

So, really great trip. Awesome place.  But, I should have started my hike around 2-3 hours earlier than I did (but then I might have missed the elk).  I will definitely go back and check out the upper North Inlet valley and meadows that I could see in the distance.  Too nice.

Oh yes.  I slept well that night : )

- Geoff Weatherford

Posted April 26, 2009

Once or twice (sometimes more) a year I do a hike that turns out to be, ummm, a  little more than what I was planning.  This hike was definitely one of those.

So, it was end of the summer and I was looking for something just a little different.  I thought to myself, gee, what’s different.  Well, Wyoming is different.  Some people would say VERY different.  OK.  Wyoming it was : )

Only thing is, I didn’t feel like driving 6 hours to the Wind Rivers.  Or, 11 hours to the Beartooth country along the Montana border.  Which really narrowed it down to …………. the Snowy Range  Yes, just about 30 minutes NW of Laramie, WY , there is the Snowy Range.  I’d been there before, but I’d never really been up into the heart of it.  The high country.  So, one Sunday morning I headed north out of Fort Collins, Co to the Wyoming high country.

As a slight aside, Laramie itself, according to my kids, is rather “different”.  I actually  have a certain fondness for Laramie since it is where I saw my very first concert, the Nitty Gritty Dirt band, with a lead in by Doug Kershaw (who had to play fiddle all by himself on the stage because the rest of his band was somewhere else in Laramie drinking beer in a bar : ).  Of course, you’ve heard of this famous band (not to mention Doug).  No?  Well, it was a while ago.

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. 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. 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. (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 of the Snowy Range Loop trail. Per the instructions on the site “…1) Zoom in to your location; 2) click the “MyTopo” button for topo maps…” I’ll try and get a better map of my own after I purchase the Wyoming piece of the TOPO program I own. All links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, below is a Microsoft Live map.  The red tack shows the general location from Fort Collins, CO.  You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode.

Well, when I got to where I wanted to park (which was a story in and of itself) the day was looking like maybe not the best day to hike up to the top of a peak.

While the sun was trying to break through the clouds, it was difficult to say whether the clouds were going to win, or if the sun was going to be able to beat them back.
Zoom in a little on that.  I’m pretty sure that is Medicine Bow Peak on the right side of the ridge in the distance.

The closer I got to the mountains, the less it looked like a good day to hike up to the top of a mountain.  So, I decided to just hike up to some of the lakes instead.  As it turned out, a wise decision.
I hiked up the road to my first “lake”.  Pretty sure this is Libby Lake.  Not too many people sitting around on the tables having a picnic.  It was a little cool and breezy.  But you can see this would be a great place for a picnic in nicer weather.  A very “kid friendly” area (as always, keep your small children always in view : )

I walked past the tables to get an unobstructed view of the high country.  You can see the next lake, Lewis Lake, just through the trees.  As will be seen, there are a LOT of lakes in the Snowy Range.  The hike I intended to take is straight in front of me.  Basically, I was going right through that low area between the mountains.

I hiked on up the road to get to the actual trailhead.  There were incredibly scenic views just about any direction you cared to turn your head and look at.

Then I ran into a, to me, very disturbing sight.  Cars, trucks, and many of them.  Normally this could only mean one thing.  Lots of crowded trails.  Hmmm.  Well.  I didn’t want to turn back.  Maybe most of them were just up fishing at the next lake.  Yeah.  Right.  Oh well.  Learn to “share the trail” : )

Starting to gain a little altitude.  That let me look back down on the lake I just passed.  Pretty sure it is Lewis Lake.

And this is looking up the trail towards where I’m heading.  Looking pretty interesting.  The trail winds around to the right of this photo and then back up past that patch of snow.

It’s hard sometimes to get the “feel” for the scale of the country you are looking at.  As an example, a family has come down the trail past the distant snow bank.  If you know where to look, you can see them (just) in this photo.

So, if I go to max zoom, it’s quite a bit easier to see them.

I think that the trail I decided NOT to hike goes up that slope to the distant ridge.  And then Medicine Bow peak is just a little ways back along the ridge.  That pointed looking mountain on the left is Sugarloaf Mountain (I think).

Occasionally, but not very often, a bit of blue sky would show up for a few minutes.

Now this is a bit of an interesting junction of trails.  I took the trail off to the left here.  Up towards the Gap lakes.  But the trail to the right is what I came back on to get to this point on my loop.

Here is what the “coming back” trail looks like.  I’d pass this way again in approximately 6 hours.  More on that later.

But, this is the way I decided to go.  Mostly because I wanted to be able to see the “other side”.

I gained a quick bit of altitude right after leaving the signs.  Looking back the way I’d come.

It was getting a little late in the season for flowers.  Not that there were none, but it was definitely past the prime.  That said, I did come on this nice bunch of Columbines.

Quick macro shows the true beauty.

Remember that patch of snow off in the distance?  Well, here it is a little closer.  Looks like it has some red algae growing on it.

Looking across a few small lakes at Medicine Bow Peak (on the right) and Sugarloaf Mtn (on the near left).

Here is a portrait from the same location.

Here is looking back down towards the parking areas.  Quite a ways back.  I think that’s looking close to straight south.  So that could be the Comanche Peak area way off there on the horizon.

Another view of a small unnamed lake against the mountains.  Again, it’s hard to get the scale, but that’s a lot of country I’m looking at.  There are some hikers down on that trail right in front of me across the lake.

I’ll zoom in a little.  They have gotten a little further on the trail compared to the photo above. But at least one is visible in the above photo. If you know where to look.  Lot easier to see in the larger photos in my gallery.

The trail heads right through that little pass up ahead.  This is South Gap Lake on my left.

When I got to the further end of South Gap lake I stopped to take a photo looking back down the lake.

And here is looking over into the other side after crossing the pass.  That’s North Gap Lake below me.  The trail cuts around to the right going around the lake and then following the shore on the other side.

This is looking back towards the pass after following the trail through a bunch of boulders down close to the edge of the lake.

Here are some fellow hikers “walking” along the boulder trail.

Zoom in a little.  It was sorta “find your own way” : )

Looking down North Gap Lake.

Again, not the prime flower season, but I did find a few.

So, I climbed up on a slight rise and tried to figure out what to do.  The problem was, I really didn’t know how long it would take to hike a loop.  So, I could either rest up here for a while, or explore a little, and then head back down the way I had just come.  Or, I could just keep on going and do the loop.  The issue is, once I made the decision to do the loop, I couldn’t really turn back.  Hmmmmm.
This is looking towards where I “thought” I was headed (and, as it turned out, it was pretty much the area I ended up going through).

Zoom in a little.  Yeah.  Doesn’t really tell me much.  I mean, it doesn’t look tooooo far.  Assuming that’s where the trail goes.  I decide to go for it.  As far as I can recollect, I do end up crossing over to the right just before reaching that far “mound” in the distance.  I had been leery that the trail might go around “behind” it : )

It’s kinda strange, but for all the people I saw on the trail this is the ONLY tent I saw on the entire hike.  Not that the trail was really crowded, but I did see a few hikers.  And, of course, all those cars parked down at the trailhead.  That said, if I look on the map, there are a lot of other close lakes that I hiked past where people could have been camping.

Cruising through the country.  A large section of this part of the trail was very flat hiking.  Quite pleasant.

Looking off at a lake in the distance.  No tents in sight.  It’s possible that there is a shorter loop that cuts up behind that lake and over the ridge.  Maybe even cuts over the ridge further off to the right.  That would have chopped off several miles from the hike (although I would have missed some nice scenery).  One map does show a full (and much shorter) loop, but another map I have does not.  If the trail is not often traveled, a person might end up doing a little bit of “cross country” hiking after the trail peters out.  Pretty difficult to get “lost” unless a storm blows in or it gets dark.  I decided to play it safe on this hike.

Zoom in a little.  Nope.  Not many tents around that lake either.

Looking off to the West (I think) you can get some nice far away vistas of rural Wyoming.

I’ll zoom in on that valley in the distance.  I “think” that’s Kennaday Peak  But, I could easily be mistaken.  Now that my son Conor got me a compass for Christmas, I should be able to figure out what I’m looking at on future hikes.

Typical crossing of trails.  Missing the signs a lot of the times.

Oh look, the trail is going by “another” lake.  How surprising : )  That “mound” off in the distance is the same one that could be seen way back at North Gap lake.  I end up cutting to the right before reaching it.

With all the lakes surrounding me, there were, for some reason, relatively few stream crossings.

Looking down the small creek I just crossed, another unnamed meadow can be seen below through the trees.  Probably just another really nice spot to camp.  I think the only rule is that you have to make sure your camp site is no closer than 50 yards from a stream or lake (it will provide the specific distance on the trailhead signs).  Otherwise, you can camp where ever you wish.  They do like it if you utilize a camp spot that already exists and is close by to where you are thinking about setting up camp.

The trail took me close to the shore of this lake.

Got a little bit of blue sky for this photo.  Looking back towards Medicine Bow Mountain (I think).  Close to where I started the hike.

Got to some “high prairie” meadows.

Looking back towards my beginning.

Zoom.

Saw three groups of people on horseback.  This was one of those.

My last photo before crossing over to the “other side”.

Crossing over.

I started losing some altitude.  Not sure what lake that is in the distance.  I thought the trail would go past it, but I don’t think it did.

Pretty nice chunk of snow left over from last winter.  Had a little rain storm hit me here.  Drop of rain got on the lens of the camera.

Nice view.

So, I skipped taking any photos for the next couple of miles or more.  It was getting on late in the afternoon and I knew that I had several more miles of trail to get through.  So, I just settled down to a steady hike and let the time flow past me.

This included going past Brooklyn Lake and campground where I actually saw a fair number of hikers, campers, and cars in the distance.
After a few miles the sun came out for a while and I went past some very pretty country.  I believe somewhere around Telephone Lake area I caught this lovely rainbow.

Then, a short ways down the trail I went through a boulder field composed of many interesting jade green crystalline rocks.  Hard to capture the colors in this photo, but I tried.

Then, I finally saw a familiar site.  Sugarloaf and, to one side, Medicine Bow peak.  I knew I was close to hitting the trail junction where I had been earlier in the morning.  This first photo has “color” (although not much).  It wasn’t really as dark as the photo makes it appear.  I was trying to expose for the clouds which didn’t leave much light for the ground.

This is just B and W.

Yep, it all looks familiar now.  Notice how in this photo I set the exposure for the ground (so, you get all the correct color, etc.) which made the sky and clouds end up over exposed.  To some degree a limitation of the camera in that I am not able to “fix” it later.

As I walked down the road to my car, I happened to spot a moose out in a meadow.  It’s antlers were still bloody from scrapping off the velvet.  A sure sign that Fall (and Winter) was on it’s way.

Zoom.  The photo above shows the actual light level.  I’ve brightened this one below a fair amount so as to get all the detail possible.  It was getting close to dusk, so not much light.  And my camera is struggling : )

Got back to the car around 6:30 ish (pm : ).  Great hike.  Just a little bit longer than what I was originally expecting.  But I got a great look at all the country and want to go back someday for an overnight trip.  Really nice place and quite close to home.

- Geoff Weatherford

Posted March 1, 2009

I decided, one Saturday last summer, to head back up to the Long Draw road area for another hike (yah, if you note the “posted” date above, I’m just a mite behind on my blog : ).  I’d recently hiked the Trap Park trail (see my prior post to this one) and wanted to see what else was in that little known (to me) area.  Taking a look at the map I could see that not too much further up the road from the Trap Park trailhead was a nice looking stream called Corral Creek.  It looked like there was an extensive set of open meadows along the creek.  So, it should be nice hiking and held the possibility of seeing moose.

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. 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. 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. (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 of the Corral Creek trail. All links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, below is a Microsoft Live map.  The red tack shows the general location from Fort Collins, CO.  You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode.

I got up to the area fairly early in the morning (well, early for me; probably around 10 am which meant I left Fort Collins around 8 am).  A rather cool and cloudy morning, by the way.  But, I had rain gear, so no big deal.  One thing that seemed to be different about the creek, from looking at the map, was that there was no indication of a “trail”.  So I just went up and found a place to park on the road that was close to where the stream crossed.  There was a small rise that I immediately had to get over.  Looking back to the south, downstream, I could see the Big South Fork of the Poudre River canyon/valley.  I think that is Comanche Peak in the distance.

This is what can be seen looking west up the Corral Creek valley.  If you look at a map, you can see that the stream parallels the road (off in the trees to the right) for a good 2-3 miles.  The creek then curves away from the road (to the left) once you get closer to that mountain in the distance.

Here is a zoom in of that area.  So, instead of going to the right, close to that cabin that you can barely see in the trees, I would be going left up the main valley.

Here is a further zoom at the cabin. Again, the creek comes in from the left.  So instead of going “right” (past the cabin), you head “left” to continue up the creek (so to speak : ).

I mention all this because you probably could, if you wish, park further down the road and cut across to skip the part of the hike that is  parallel to the road.  That said, the hike along the left/south side of the Corral Creek meadows was quite nice and far enough from the road that you easily forgot it was there (too far away to hear any of the vehicles).

So, I took off along the stream.

However, I quickly found out that the best thing to do was to stay up along the edge of the meadows along the tree line.  The meadows themselves were, in many areas, quite wet and boggy.  Even up close to the trees you had to cross a lot of “drainages”.  Lots of springs, really, that drained down into the stream.  Very pretty, but you had to watch your step or you would quickly get wet feet.  I did see a lot of moose/elk sign, but nothing of the animals themselves.

At this time of the year, and at this elevation,the main crop of wild flowers seemed to have come and gone.  But there were still a few around.

Pretty from a distance, and even nicer close up : )

As I stated already, there really was not a designated trail to follow (that I ever found), but you could usually find game trails that took you in the right direction.  I used them to cut across some of the smaller hills in order to straighten out my hiking somewhat.

I mentioned that the first couple of miles paralleled the road across on the other side of Corral Creek.  Here is a photo that shows what you could see of the road.  Pretty nice distance (I could never hear any of the few vehicles that were traveling it) and most of it was in the trees.  So, very much “not there”.  That said, you can’t expect a true wilderness setting : )

As I stated earlier, staying up near the trees is best if you want to keep your feet dry (unless you have waterproof boots).  That said, being out in the wet meadows provides for some nice views of the area that you could not get from the trees.  So, occasionally I walked out into the meadow.  This is looking “up” Corral Creek.

Here is a photo looking back down the creek (eastward).

Zoom in a little.

The hike along the creek to where it veered away from the road took a lot longer than I thought it would.  But, I did eventually get to that point.  Here is a photo of that cabin that is the demarcation point for Corral Creek veering away from the road.  Also, this shows another reason it was taking so long.  The game “trails” (using the term rather loosely) were not nearly as easy to follow through the willow brush as up along the tree line.

Zoom in a little.

Max zoom.  Some one has a nice little getaway cabin : )  Looks like there may be a small pond out there also.  That’s a beaver lodge poking above the bushes between the cabin and where I’m standing.

Anyway, I “turned the corner” (so to speak) where the creek began to curve around to the southwest and had to make a decision.  Should I stay on this side of the creek or cross over to the other side?  There were a lot of pros and cons either way.  The other side appeared to be easier hiking (from what could be seen at this point), but would add mileage to my hike.  Staying on this side looked shorter, but I might have to do a little more “bushwhacking”.

I decided to stay on this side.  Turned out to be an ok decision, but crossing to the other side probably would have worked out fine also.  In fact, if you start hiking up Corral Creek by stopping on the road close to that cabin’s driveway, it would make sense to stay on the other side.

As I thought, I had to do a little bushwhacking to skip some areas along the creek that looked too wet.  I crossed over a little ridge which let me enjoy true “woods hiking.”  Did find some pretty nice game trails to follow and, in general (mostly), was never out of sight of Corral Creek.

Another slightly different section.  Pretty nice.  Remember that when doing hikes like this (so, not following designated/maintained trails), keep aware of where you are at all times.  If you daydream while doing “off trail” hiking, it’s pretty easy to get turned around (lost).   Unfortunately, I know this from experience : )

I eventually got to a point where I could see the Corral Creek valley again.  This is looking across the valley.  And looking quite nice.

Then, a little further along, I could get a full view of the upper Corral Creek drainage.

Zoom in a little.  Yes, quite a bit of country up here to wander around in.  And no real trail, so pretty remote.

Got up to a really nice meadow which gave a pretty good view of the upper valley of Corral Creek.

Zoom in a little.

This part of the hike was about as far as I went.  I tried going a little further, but ran into some deep forest and lots of wet areas.  In addition, it decided to rain for a while. So, decided to turn back.  If someone was coming up for an overnight trip, then it would be worthwhile to try and go further.  But, be prepared to do a lot of bushwhacking through the brush, downed trees, and wet/boggy meadows.  Probably worth it once you got further up the valley into the upper bowls.

Here are some views from the last nice meadow (dry : )  Sorta panning from left to right.

And here is a pano made up of those photos (better quality is available on my website (http://www.geoffw.smugmug.com/gallery/7165464_8cCqp#460369147_Chxrx-X2-LB ).  I did meet up with a couple of other day hikers at this point.  Otherwise, seems like a nice place for a campsite.  Pretty good chance to see moose in the evening and/or early morning.  Or, elk in the Fall.

Also met this guy on the trail.  Think I’ve seen him on some of my other hikes.  Could be a stalker : )

Heading back down the trail I happened to spot what I at first thought was some sort of bee or moth or something flying around the grass.

But, I’m pretty sure it is a hummingbird.  One of the few I’ve actually encountered in the “wild”.  I think that long windy thing is it’s tongue.  I think, but I’m not a humming bird expert.
OK.  After some further research, I think this may not be a hummingbird, but rather a “hummingbird moth”.  Please see this link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroglossum_stellatarum That link seems to be about a European species.  This link        (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemaris )is about American species.  Maybe they have only recently started appearing in Colorado?  Interesting.  Again, check my gallery (see link above) in order to get a really good view using a larger photo which allows you to see good detail.

It pretty much ignored me, but was very tough to actually get a good photo since it’s flight was so erratic and swift.  I took a lot of photos of just the grasses and flowers because the humming bird/moth would be gone by the time the camera went “click” : )

Have to say it was an entertaining interlude in my hike.

It was definitely getting something from the few remaining wild flowers.

It would literally bury it’s head in them.  Pretty amazing.  I should have stuck around to see if it would fly back to a nest, but the day was getting on and I had several miles left before the end of the hike.  Obviously, if it is a “moth”, then no nest.

After saying “bye” to the moth (or, whatever it was), I turned into the final leg of the hike down Corral Creek.  The clouds had mostly cleared up giving me some great views.

Here is slightly different photo of that.

Zoom portrait mode.

Crossed Corral Creek at one point and stopped to get some photos of the water action.

Closer.

Trying to stop the water.

This was getting to be late afternoon and the quality of light in the valley was hitting that “magic” time of day.  But, although I could see it with my eyes, it was difficult to capture in a photo.  Looking back up the valley.

These come close.

Overview.  I had to sit for a while and just enjoy.

Turning around you can look down into the Poudre River Canyon.

I walked to a slightly different vantage point and zoomed in a little.

Max zoom from the same point.  From where I parked the car, there was a trail that takes off down to the Poudre.  Looked like a 1-2 mile hike.

Neat clouds.

After getting back to the car and heading back down the gravel road to Colorado 14, I happened to passed a cow and calf moose in a meadow by the side of the road.  Running out into the dirt road in my bare feet (drying them out from the hike) I took, of course, more photos : )

Hmmmm.  Zoom in a little on that.  I’ve got a movie on my web site at http://geoffw.smugmug.com/gallery/7165464_8cCqp/1/474140397_a2G7U/Original that you can use to view the moose if you wish.

All in all, very nice hiking only a short ways from Fort Collins.  Lots of new country back in this area that I look forward to checking out next summer.

- Geoff Weatherford

Posted December 25, 2008

After Will and myself’s little escapade on the Blue Lake trail, I decided to look around for something a little lower in elevation until I was sure the snow was gone from the higher elevations.  So, Sunday, July 13 I looked at the map at the area around Cameron Pass for some “quick and easy to get to” trails (got off to kind of a late start : ).  Now, interestingly enough, I’ve done a fair amount of hiking north of Cameron Pass (the Rawahs), but not much in the country south of the pass.  Particularly back in the Long Draw Reservoir area.  Hmmm.  Looks to be a trail up a valley called Trap Park that was not too far off Hwy 14, so that’s where I headed.

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. 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. 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. (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 of the Trap Park trail. All links open a new browser window.

In addition to the Google map link above, here is a Microsoft Live map.  The red tack shows the general location from Fort Collins, CO.  You can click on the map to bring it up in a “live” mode.

Trap Park Traihead

I had to drive up the Long Draw road around 3 miles off of the paved Hwy 14 to get to the Trap Park trailhead turnoff.  But, the Long Draw Road is an extremely well maintained gravel road (wide, too) if just a tad bit on the dusty side.  The Trap Park turn off was a little tricky to maneuver in my new “low to the ground” Hyundai, but I went slow and it was only 100 yards or so to the parking lot.

The smallness of the parking lot, and the few vehicles that were parked in it, got my “trail o meter” buzzing.  Because the country was looking really nice, the trail looked really lightly used, and it had all the makings of a new “gem” (a special trail).
I shrugged into my pack, hung my camera from my neck, and stuck my hat on my head.  And off I went.

Here is a shot of the sign at the entrance.

Now, don’t get confused at this point.  Because you will see a trail heading off behind the sign.  That is not the trail to Trap Park, but instead it is a trail to Trap Lake which is close by (in fact, if you keep driving up the Long Draw road past the Trap Park trail turnoff, you will drive right past the lake).  Anyway, assuming you want to got to Trap Park and not the lake, head up the trail that goes through the steel gate (you can see it in my “parking lot” photo).

Also, please have some mosquito repellent with you if you go during the summer.  The mosquitos were in full force along the first section of the trail as it winds through some meadows that are lush and damp.  You will also encounter them in the woods.  Once I got up into the “park”, the breeze was good enough to make the mosquitoes disappear.  That said, they weren’t bad enough to make me put on any repellent (I do that as a last resort) nor keep me from stopping to take some photos : )

Close ups of some Indian Paintbrush wild flowers.

Macro……….

The first half mile or more of the trail (after the meadows) will have you gaining all the altitude that you will need to get up to the elevation of Trap Park.  But, it’s not that steep (at all) and follows an old road.  So, pretty easy walking.

The elevation gain also provides for some great view of the surrounding country.  Here is a photo looking north into the southern end of the Rawah Wilderness Area.

Here is a zoom of the area.  I’m pretty darned sure that this is looking at the Blue Lake trail area.  I think I can almost see exactly where Will and I had to turn back due to the deep snow two weeks earlier in our attempt to hike to Blue Lake.

Here is a little side stream that the trail/road crosses.  Still a few patches of snow around.  Great place to take a short break (particularly if you have kids along).

And then you come around a little corner of the trail.  And there it is.  Trap Park.  As can be seen, it was quite nice.  Quite, quite nice.  And it is even nicer than what the photo shows.  As the man said, “Trust me”.

Looking across the park at flower level.

Macro of one of the flowers.  Just amazing.

The one thing that strikes you right away, aside from the massive beauty of the place, is that it is very lightly used.  The road disappears, and the trail takes off.  Plan on getting your feet slightly damp (although, if you come later in the summer, the stream may be low enough to hop across).

Almost immediately I hit a common (to me) trail puzzle.  Which way to go?  It seemed fairly obvious that the trail went across the stream and headed (probably) up the park.  But wait.  After I had already crossed the stream, what was that over there?

Another trail.  Even if it’s not the “main” trail, where does it go?  Should I go check it out?  Sigh.  So many trails, so little time.

Zoom in on the trail.  I mean, it’s a perfectly good trail.  My feet are begging me to go there.  But, another time maybe.  I move on.

I love little ponds.  I think this one maybe had a couple of ducks swimming around.  Can’t remember.  Now, remember me saying something about, ummm, “insects” earlier.  Well, out in the open in the park, the breeze was just enough to keep the insects at bay.  And sun/air combination was enough to make the breeze seem nice.  BUT, if I stepped off into the woods (as I did for a short time), I found that the mosquitoes (and other flying insects) were still around in force.   So, I did not spend a lot of time in the trees.  I let the insects have the trees, and the insects let me have the park meadows.  Everyone was happy : )

Zoom in on that a little.  Not sure what mountain that is, but I’d really like to hike up it.  I look through my maps for a minute back home and then remember the slick National Geographic map software Conor got me a while back.  So, I quickly load that and check out the area.  Iron Mountain, elevation 12,265 (almost exactly 2,000 feet higher that Cameron Pass).

A little more zoom and change the perspective.

I get past the pond and see that the park just keeps on opening up ahead of me.  I mean, it just keeps getting better and better.  And, as can be seen, the weather was ab-so-lute-ly perfect.

Looking across the valley, is Flat Top Mountain.  Maybe that’s where the other trail goes to.  Interestingly enough, directly on the other side of that mountain is another valley I hike up a few weeks in the future.  But, that’s another story.

Here is a sequence of 4 photos that zoom ever closer at Iron Mountain which rises at the end of Trap Park.  Have I said yet how the park just kept on going and going?

Zoom.

Zoom some more.

Max zoom.  Yeah, that looks doable.  Maybe not today, but some day.

I’ve seen this guy before on some of my other hikes.  Strange.

Note the heavily worn trail?

I saw a total of 6 people on the trail.  3 close up, and the rest at a distance.  These are 2 of the ones that I saw “at a distance.”   Ummmm.  Actually, they ARE in the photo, but kinda difficult to see, no?

Here.  Let me zoom in on a small section of the above photo.  I never did see them again.

Crossed a few nice little streams.

Looking back down the trail.

So, I was strolling along enjoying the view, when I started to come over just a very slight rise to where you could see a large portion of the meadows.  I just caught the barest glimmer of a “darkish” object that didn’t quite jibe with the rest of the background.  It’s difficult to see, but right where that old log with the stump sticking up in the air (to the left of the trail), the ground drops off a bit.

I zoomed in to get a better view.   Ah yes.  A moosey in the willows : )

I position myself to get a little better view (behind the log : )  Yep.  Ol moosey, himself.

At first I thought he would be running away the first chance he got after seeing me, but it turned out he was quite happy just to make sure I didn’t get too close while he was eating.

Zoom in a little.

As can be imagined, I took a LOT of photos.  Even took some videos that you can see at my web site:
http://www.geoffw.smugmug.com/gallery/6713765_nAUDA#431353633_wKe6R

As it turned out, there were several moose eating together in the willows.  Here are 3 (or 4) others about 50 yards away from the largest bull.

Anyway, I took another photo (or 100) and then headed on up the park.

After another 100-200 yards, I came upon a sign indicating that this was a boundary for a wilderness area.

Zoom in on that.  Nice to see that they are putting some protection up.  Mostly to warn the snowmobiles that come up in the winter.  Be pretty nice cross country skiing around here.

This is the “head” of the park.  I hiked another quarter mile or so pretty much right into the middle of that meadow area in front of me.  The trail drops down here and heads out across the willow flats (that are interspersed with some nice meadows).  You do start to cross the stream multiple times which caused me to hike up and down looking for somewhere to cross (wouldn’t be a problem later on in the summer).

At this point, if you were looking to hike up the mountain, you’d need to make a decision.  Either head up left to the ridge (through the trees where those snowfields are located).  Or, head up the valley as it winds out of sight to the right.  Unless there is a nice trail up the valley, I’d head up to the ridge, I think.  I decided to head back down at this point, so I don’t know which direction the trail ends up going.

On the way back down the trail, I took a little photo to show how beaten down the trail is : )  Pretty nice for being not really that far off the highway.

I also ran into my moose buddies.  They must have been into some prime feed : )  As can be seen, the wildlife people have been busy keeping tabs on these guys.

Headed back down the trail, after saying goodbye to the moose, and came across a nice patch of Colorado yellow mountain flowers (new species : ).

Here is the whole scene.  Gee.  I wonder what’s around the end of the snow?  Another meadow……  O well, some other time.

Here is a close-up of one of the flowers.

It’s amazing how much different everything looks when going back down the same trail you just came up a few hours ago.
Actually getting a few (very few) clouds in the sky.  With the sun headed down, light is getting a bit nicer for photos.

Turning and looking back one last time at upper Trap Park.

Zoom a little.  Pretty nice.

Looking across Trap Creek at Flat Top mountain again.  Looks like a nice spot for a tent over there on the other side of the stream..

Heading back down the road/trail, I take a photo of that creek.  It’s in the shadows now.

Can’t go without getting my feet all snowy and wet, so I found a patch of snow : )

This is on the road/trail not too far from the parking lot.  That’s looking at Trap Lake.  And I “think” that far peak (the one without trees to the right) is in the Comanche Peak area where Conor and I did some hiking.  Small world.

So, all in all, a great “gem” of a trail.  Good for all types of people, multiple day hikes if desired, and really not that far from the big cities.  I’ll have to come back and hike up Iron Mountain some time.

- Geoff Weatherford

Posted November 16, 2008

This fall in northern Colorado has been “mild”. Just one long September (well, the leaves changed, but the weather stayed warmish). So, one Saturday I got up, took it easy, did a few chores, and decided it was just too nice to stay in town. Headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park looking for a good hike. Just in passing, there is a reason I go to RMNP at this time of year. Hunters. I have nothing against hunting at all, but the density of hunters in Colorado is pretty extreme at this time of the year. So, I leave them to the hunting and go enjoy the park.

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.
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. 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. (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 of the Mill Creek trail. All links open a new browser window.

Here is a map of how to get to the Mill Creek trail head.  If you click on it, you should be taken to a live map that you can scroll around on and zoom in and out.  Pretty cool : )

There was really no snow in the mountains yet, and it was very close to shorts and tshirt weather, so I headed up to Bear Lake to hike up Glacier Gorge (or, somewhere up in that vicinity). Unfortunately, about 10 million people had the same idea. I couldn’t even make it into the Bear Lake parking lot.

So, no problem. There is a neat thing about national parks. They can be really crowded at times, but normally only in the few well known places (Bear Lake definitely being one of those places). But, everywhere else in the park can be pretty uncrowded. So, I pulled into a place along the Bear Lake road I’d never stopped at before to take a look at the hiking possibilities.

Hmmmm. Yah. Looked nice to me : ) This is a pano of two photos. Looking up Mill Creek from the Hollowell Park trailhead.

Now, I can’t say that I didn’t see any other people on the trail. I did. Like, maybe 12 people during the entire hike. But, compare that to the 10 million up at Bear Lake and, well, it’s like I was back in the wilderness. This turned out to be a GREAT hike. And would be an incredible place a little earlier in the fall when the fall colors were max’d out. But even today, there was enough “color” to make it quite pretty.

Here is a shot of the trailhead sign. Checking the map I could see that the area had the potential for some nice loops. I partook of a short loop today, but the other trails that offer a loop are 8 miles in length, so I’ll have to come back and do them some other time. I only went for around 4 miles today. This is also a great trail for kids. Lots of flat wide open places. And the trail spends a good portion of its time pretty close to a stream.

Here is a shot of the parking lot (this was taken after the hike, but the number of cars stayed the same). Believe me, that’s pretty sparse compared to what I had just seen up at Bear Lake : )

I did hit some limitations with my camera today. The photos above are later in the day (end of the hike) when the clouds had cleared off. But at the beginning, it was kinda lightly overcast. Which meant I could get good exposure of the ground or the sky, but not both at the same time. So, tough shooting with my current camera.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this mountain before.

Zoom in a little. Some of the very high country still had a little snow remaining from earlier storms.

Playing around with a dead tree and Longs.

Decided to see what it would look like in black and white (since I was having trouble with my exposures). Not too bad.

Still a few trees around with some colorful leaves. Actually caught a couple of those 12 people in this photo : )

Zoom in on that.

Saw this very strange spider(?) crossing the trail and had to take a close up photo (my camera made me : ). Really quite different from anything I’d ever seen before.

Like I said, most of the leaves had fallen, but there still remained a lot of fall color to enjoy.

The trail enters the trees at the head of the Hollowell Park and starts a gentle uphill climb. While you can’t always see the stream, you can hear it as you walk along.

And here is a photo of the stream. As I said, great place for kids (or, wanna be kids like myself : )

I like little water falls.

This is really about as steep as the trail gets on this part of the “loop”. And it doesn’t stay this way for very long.

A few leaves still remaining on these aspens.

Further along, the trail enters an open area. Yes, I need to come back here next year in late September.

Now, I did mention about some long loops that can be found for extended hiking in the area, but you can do a “short” loop without much difficulty. And I recommend that you do that, as you will encounter different, but equally nice, scenery either way. Here is where you can create a short “loop”. I decided to go left at this sign (and then ended up coming back down to this point through the aspens in the background).

And this is what it looks like to go “left”. You get to cross the creek and continue up the valley to “Mill Creek Basin”. As you can see from the sign, there are quite a few other destinations.

Once you cross the creek, the trail meanders up the valley at a very gentle slope.

The trail stays just inside the edge of the forest, but you can catch glimpses of the meadows along the creek. I tried walking up the creek through the meadows, but ended up running into a lot of very wet areas, so went back to the trail and continued up. And, yes, those are some very small patches of snow on the ground (it was T-shirt weather during the hike).

I eventually got to another trail juncture. The way I had just come was 1.7 miles from Hollowell Park. If I kept on going up the trail, I could get to Bierstadt Lake and/or Bear Lake (during the summer there are free shuttle buses running that could drop you back a Hollowell Park). However, I decided to hook right and head toward Cub Lake which would allow me to pass through the Mill Creek Basin meadow and then connect to the “loop” trail that heads back to Hollowell Park.

Here is a photo of Mill Creek Basin’s meadow. The trail crosses the bottom of the meadow. PERFECT place for a break/lunch stop.

I liked the look of the Mill Creek basin meadow, so I took a little hike around it and found a rather lovely little spot for a “snack” break. Even a few downed trees to sit on.

The apple hit the spot : )

As I left Mill Creek basin, the sun came out (mostly) so I could grab a photo showing some final fall color in the meadow.

Zoom.

The trail goes on past the meadow and hits the junction with the small loop trail that I wanted to take back down the valley. You can just see the sign (waaaaay up the trail) for the junction in the photo below. Turn right to head back to Hollowell Park or keep going straight to head to Cub Lake and other points.

This is looking back down into Mill Creek basin after I’d headed back towards Hollowell Park and gained some altitude. Tough shot looking back into the sun, but pretty much shows the majority of the meadow area. Sweet spot.

The trail goes up to the top of a ridge and then drops (fairly quickly) through a small valley of a good sized grove of tall aspen.

Another view of the trail. Yes, pretty pleasant hiking.

You can get some views to the east (?) while coming down the trail.

Made it back to the junction with the original trail (remember that?) and this is looking back at the area of aspens that I’d just hiked through.

Zoom in a little. Another area that would (like the Mill Creek basin meadow) be a great place to be in during the height of the fall colors.

Back along the creek I stopped to get some pictures of a set of small waterfalls.

Zoom in of part of that area.

Got back to Hollowell Park meadow and the sun came out for some nice “before sunset” photos of the strange mountain that seems to end up in a lot of my photos.

Zoom.

Also went back to my “dead tree” buddy for some framed shots.

Then I meandered down to the stream to see if I could get any photos of a beaver pond (or, something). With the time remaining (the sun was quickly heading downward), I found a nice reflection in a small beaver pond.

Two “sun dogs” made their appearance. Pretty tricky shooting for my camera, but not too bad. I had to run to find a tree to try and block the sun since my camera lens is prone to flare. Sun dog to the left……………

And sun dog to the right…………………

And then I combined them to get a pano………

Fun stuff : )

Anyway, headed back out of RMNP which took me past Moraine Park. At which point I saw just about one of the best/neatest views in a long time. Sun was setting, mood and color was great, and you could see hundreds of elk (that’s what all those little dots are in the photo). So, did my best with what I had. None of my photos really captured the moment, but it was still awesome to be there.
I put one “version” of the scene at the beginning of this series, but here is another version. In reality, it would have been a combination of both (but, my camera was just not up to it).

And then, to top it off, I hit the not uncommon “Estes Park traffic jam” : ) Had a couple of hundred elk crossing Hwy 34 on the edge of town. This is pretty much after most of them had crossed (yeah, I’m a little slow sometimes : ) Hard to tell (but this is max zoom) so the line of stuck traffic I was part of is quite long. We sat there for 5-10 minutes (and it had already been there for that long before I arrived).

Really great hike/day even if I did get off to a late start (part of the reason it was so nice : ). I’ll be heading back to Mill Creek area for more hikes (maybe next fall). But, I did head to Moraine Park the following weekend (but, that’s another story : )

- Geoff Weatherford

Posted October 19, 2008

Conor, Will, and I actually spent some time together this summer. It’s just taken me a while to get the photos “developed”. I’ve already updated this web site with the photos of the Long Meadows hike Conor and I did together, so here is a hike that all three of us did together.

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.
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. 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. (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 of the Lake Haiyaha trail. All links open a new browser window.

Here is a Microsoft map of the location for this hike. You can click on it to get more info on how to get there (highways, etc.).

This is a hike in RMNP (Rocky Mountain National Park), Lake Haiyaha (located in Chaos Canyon), that Will first discovered from going up with his climbing buddies early this past summer (they had to walk over/through a lot of snow). As it turned out, it’s a great hike out of the Bear Lake parking area and leads to a lovely high mountain lake. With, as you will see, some great views of the surrounding country almost the entire time of the hike.

We took off on a Monday morning, ate breakfast in Estes Park (at the Egg and I), and got on the trail around noon. Note that the earlier you can get to the parking lot, the more chance you will have to find an open parking space. Your other option, during part of the year, is to take a shuttle bus. The trail starts off at a gentle climb through the forest.

Although my photos won’t show them, we did meet/see a moderate amount of hikers on the first half mile or so to Nymph Lake. Then the number of hikers decreased a lot on the way to Dream Lake. The trail between Dream Lake and Lake Haiyaha was pretty vacant (saw a hand full of hikers including a couple of rangers) and the same at Lake Haiyaha itself. Amazingly low numbers of hikers (I thought) , but maybe the numbers reflect that the official “summer” season had ended.

Will and Conor (who carried the heavy load of climbing pad) kept me moving fairly fast.

This is overlooking Nymph Lake at Longs Peak (which, as will be seen, was pretty evident throughout the entire hike).

Another view of Longs Peak further up the trail. I have, umm, many photos of Longs : )

The day started out sunny and stayed that way. It was warm in the sun, but cool in the shade. Perfect. As I said, the trail was extremely nice and easy.

Here is a sequence of Longs Peak photos. Each one zooming in a little more than the others.

Zoom.

Zoom more.

Photo of Conor taking a break and just enjoying the view (and giving me a chance to catch up : ). I think this is right below Dream Lake.

After a while, we could see back down across RMNP to the town of Estes Park way off in the distance.

I think this is looking up Glacier Gorge with Longs Peak looming over it. Glacier Gorge looks like a nice hike. I’ll try and hike Glacier Gorge this year, but I may have missed my chance. It’s raining outside and supposed to snow fairly heavy in the mountains tonight. O well, it will be there next year.

Zoom in a little on that. Looks like it has at least one nice lake in the gorge.

Final zoom.

Will trying to make friends : ) Note that this was as close as he attempted to get to the chipmunk (and the photo is making him look closer than he really was). The small animals are very friendly, but they can/will bite if feeling threatened and the park rules are not to feed wildlife.

After a rather nice hike, we arrive at Chaos Canyon. The trail to the lake and climbing boulders are right behind Will. Sorta.

OK. Not much of a trail. But it made for very interesting “hiking”. The reason Will led us along this “path” is that when he came up with his friends in the early summer, everything was covered with snow except for the middle of the drainage (with the rocks melting away the snow quicker than along the sides of the valley). So, this is the only route he knew.

On the way down from the lake, we found a much easier trail to the right of this photo. I believe there is an “official” trail to the left that we would have seen if we had kept walking on the main trail (from Dream Lake). But. have to admit this was pretty fun way to get to the lake. It did get a little tricky the as you got closer to the lake. The boulders got rather large. So, not a good way to go unless you are ready to do some scrambling on some big rocks. Basically, don’t take smaller/inexperienced children this way.

Will and Conor quickly moved along, while I took photos. Cool looking area. The weather wasn’t too bad either : )

Will liked to move along rather quickly (which was safe to do when, as was now the case, you have others around in case you sprain an ankle; or worse).

Conor was content to take it a little slower (not to mention he was carrying the heaviest pack).

A view.

First good view of Lake Haiyaha.

Looking back down the valley towards………, well, I forget it’s name now : )

Zoom in a little in portrait mode.

Full zoom.

We weren’t totally alone at Lake Haiyaha. You definitely did not feel any crowding problems, but there were a half dozen or so other folks around. Including a couple of climbers that we met, the 2 rangers that we saw on the trail (they were across the lake), and this small group of fisherpeople below us (this is close to full zoom). It was easy for us to see fish swimming around in the lake (12+ inchers), but we never saw any of the fish get caught.

While hiking up the boulder field to the lake, Conor and Will had gone one way and I went another (looking for an easier route : ) We got out of sight, but could usually hear each other. But, for a while I was wondering if they were going to end up bouldering on the other side of the lake (meaning that I would have to hike around the lake to get to them). But, they eventually showed up.

It’s difficult to see from these photos, but we are standing on the tops of some rather large boulders. The climbing routes are all below us.

Here is a photo of Conor climbing down to take a look at one route.

View of “inside” the rock room. Another couple of climbers were working on the route. This area appears to be a well known (at least in northern Colorado) bouldering site. Enough that “some” climbers leave their climbing pads (crash pads) hidden among the boulders. Per the rangers, this was somewhat of a problem and they always request the climbers to please don’t leave the climbing gear littering the area.

I took a LOT of photos of the lake which can be seen on my web site, but here is a pano I made up to try and show the area in total (this will also be on my web site as a MUCH bigger version).

Here is Will on the photo that makes up the far left part of the pano.

Another view of Will and the strange mountain that seems to be in a lot of the pictures.

The boys.

Funning around with the camera.

Where did all the Cheetos go?

We finally found the route that Will wanted to work on. Was a rather nice wall. We noticed here that while it was very nice in the sun, out of the sun it was a little on the “cool” side. I could actually see my breath in the shade here.

Ready.

Set

Go.

Conor making some moves.

Reaching.

But, eventually, it was time to head back to the car. Going back down the trail we had a view of an interesting cloud situation. It looked as if the mountains were blocking the clouds from “invading” Estes Park.

Zoom. Good view of Lumpy Ridge to the left of Estes. It goes quite a bit further to the left of where this photo ends (see the above photo, you can just see the last “lumpy” all the way to the left). Will and I hiked a full loop around Lumpy Ridge one day. Now I see why it took us so long : )

Heading down. Again, I saw no hobbits.

Another great day in the mountains. I’ll have to do some more hiking in the future in that area (after the crowds have gone, September is perfect).

- Geoff Weatherford