Twin Lakes

Day 14

Miles hiked today: 18.8
Miles from Denver: 181.4
Elevation: 9,200 ft
Segments 10, 11
Landmarks: San Isabel National Forest, Mt. Massive Wilderness, Mt. Elbert, Twin Lakes, Wind Spirit Cafe

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I had set an alarm so that we could set out for Mt. Massive at an early hour. With this being thunderstorm season, it is best to attempt any summit of a 14er as early as possible. Paul was going to attempt to summit too, and neither one of us have climbed a 14,000 foot mountain. Unfortunately, when I looked outside in the morning, it had dawned dark and grey. There was low cloud cover in all directions, and the clouds had just enough shade in them to look menacing. Paul was still optimistic, but I was seeing our chances at Mt. Massive as pretty much gone. We decided to go ahead and hike the 4 miles to the summit trail, and see if the weather changed.

There is a possibility here of bypassing Mt. Massive, camping at the Halfmoon Creek trailhead, and trying for Mt. Elbert the next morning. They are practically the same height, Elbert being 12 feet taller at 14,433 feet. The problem is at this point I just really wanted to keep moving. I passed the Mt. Massive side trail at about 8:45 am, and if I wanted to wait for tomorrow for Elbert I only had another 3 miles to walk to camp.

Paul from D.C.

Instead, both Paul and I made for Twin Lakes, a tiny historic town that's in the valley below, and just a mile off trail. According to a hiker we talked to this morning, there is a restaurant there that serves some pretty good pizza. That was all the convincing I needed. Leaving the two 14ers for another day, I hiked on.

The hike off of the lower slopes of Mt. Elbert was beautiful. A very old aspen forest gave way to ponderosa pine and sagebrush. What had started out as a cloudy day was turning sunny, even hot. The Twin Lakes are spread out far below as you descend, providing a great view of the entire valley.

This turned out to be one of my favorite town stops so far. There is a general store that is run by a very small lady who looks to be in her late 70s. When asked what time the store closes, she said usually when she gets tired, around 5 or 6. There is a very small post office in the back, and she is also the postmaster. I had shipped a box here, and she simply pointed to a pile of boxes on the back shelves and told me to pick out which one was mine.

Everybody we talked to in this town is friendly. There was a minivan that had pulled up, and several children got out. The dad came over to talk to Paul and I, who were sitting on the steps of the general store. After a few questions about the hike, he revealed that two of his kids had puked all over the car on their way through Independence Pass, which is why he was talking to us while all the cleaning was going on. With mail and supplies set, we migrated next door to the Wind Spirit Cafe. This was the place with the famed pizza, and I had been looking forward to this all day.

This cafe was something special. The food and service were really good, but there were also several other people hanging around the cafe, all of whom came over to ask about the hike and were just really nice. The place was owned by a couple from eastern Nebraska, who drive out every summer to run the place. When I asked for a ride back to the trail, Rich, the owner, made a special effort to clean out a few seats in his pickup so he could drive us back out there.

I had a half a pizza in a ziplock in my pack, and Paul and I had decided to hike around the other side of the lake where there was a campsite, about 4 miles. This turned out to be some of the most memorable 4 miles on the entire trail so far. Back in Twin Lakes when I was trying my best to eat as much pizza as I could, it was sunny with lazy white clouds above. We were seated outside on a green lawn and I felt like I could crash on the lawn for a few hours. Now that we had left and were walking around the lake, ominous clouds started to gather around Mt. Massive and Mt. Elbert behind us. I kept checking over my shoulder to see if the clouds had moved any closer, and of course they had. This was looking like one heck of a storm.

All around the lake there are campgrounds and rv sites, which meant that every 3/4 mile or so there was a bathroom building. These are brick structures with mens and women's sides, each with two stalls with outhouse toilets. We were no more than 2 miles from Twin Lakes when the storm finally caught up, and suddenly it seemed prudent to hightail it to the nearest bathroom building.

The storm was so bad that I seriously considered what it would be like to spend the night inside this building. There was an overhang on the roof and we were able to hang out on the leeward side without getting wet, and eventually the storm passed. It was still cold, windy and drizzling a little bit, and didn't seem like it would be a pleasant night. It was 7:30, we had taken shelter for an hour and we still had a few more miles to go.

A little ways down the trail, we took shelter from the rain in another of these buildings. This time the storm was not so bad so I got my camera out, and I noticed that there was a small ray of light appearing between the peaks at Independence Pass, coming over from Aspen. Within 5 minutes there were reds, blues, pinks and purples surrounding all of the mountains to the west, and it was a spectacular sight. You could not take a bad picture of the scene, and it has to rank as one of the best sunsets I have ever seen.

The most amazing thing was as the clouds cleared from the taller peaks, they revealed SNOW. Snow was covering every peak from about 12,000 feet up. How incredible!