South Park

Day 5

Miles hiked today:  18.7
Miles from Denver: 68.1
Elevation: 10,200 ft
Segments 4,5
Landmarks:  Lost Creek Wilderness Area, Rock Creek, South Park

VIEW MAP

This trail is an unbelievable find.  I had nearly 19 miles of the most beautiful terrain to myself today.  The trail is beautifully maintained, and seemingly seldom used.  There was a note in the guidebook about a "boggy section" that has been giving trail crews headaches for years. Visions of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and worst of all, Maine bog bridges crossed through my mind.  The kind of bog that swallows the bog bridges down whole.  Or maybe just be like Vermont or Adirondack State Park and let the bogs swallow the hikers.

But, not here. By "boggy" they actually meant a little bit of mud, where if you pick your footing carefully you're guaranteed dry passage.  I think the standards of bogs are slightly different out here.

No kidding, I did not see a single soul on the trail today.  There was one guy who waved at me as I left the campsite, but that was before I stepped back on the trail.  I walked up a 5 mile long meadow filled with at least 200 cows, all of whom gave me a rude look.  I was the uninvited guest.  I had a blue sky throughout the morning, and am really glad I brought long pants, long shirt and a hat.  In fact the only part of me exposed to the sun are the tops of my hands, which are burned pretty good.  The long meadow is about a quarter mile wide, 5 miles long and lined on either side by mountains.  When I got to the far end I was at the top of a pass, which I soon saw when I came to a viewpoint was really a very high saddle, and I was about to drop down the other side.  From the viewpoint I could see for the first time the Continental Divide.  It is an impressive site, being on top of a really tall mountain and looking across at mountains 15 miles away that look way taller than what you're standing on.  Some of them still have chutes of snow or glaciers visible.

The long meadow was actually outside the Lost Creek Wilderness, but only just along side it.  Now that I reached the saddle and started to descend I was back in the wilderness area, and I was much more impressed this time.  It was simply a very beautiful hike.  Gone was the logging road and seeded forest I experienced yesterday, replaced by a beautiful trail that hugged the contours of the mountain to the right of the trail, and endless aspen.  I probably saw more aspen today than I've seen in my whole life.  The sun stayed out, but there were plenty of fat lazy clouds to make the pictures more interesting.  For the first time there were no afternoon thunderstorms or even thunder.  And again it struck me that I have this place all to myself.  Why is this place not choked with people?  This is gorgeous!

I had just made a decision today to slow up a little bit and camp about halfway through this segment, instead of pushing to the end for a 23 mile day.  I get my resupply at the end of this segment, and I just ate my last dinner tonight, and my last breakfast will get me to the road tomorrow.  So I intended to get water at Rock Creek, just outside the Wilderness area and and find a place to camp and call it a day.  Wouldn't you know there was a very nice little campsite right there just past the creek.  But as I took my pack off I was hit with inspiration: it wasn't going to rain.  Of course this was just a guess, but the weather today behaved very differently than the other 4 days before.  So far I have been hit consistently with a thunderstorm between 2 and 6 pm.  So, I cooked my dinner there so I wouldn't have to haul water and decided to hike on.



Gone were all of my thoughts of ailments like blisters, etc. where to camp, where to find water or even how far I should go.  As the sun decanted to the west and the most impressive lineup of clouds marched by to the north, I entered into a low area (if 10,000 feet can be considered low) full of rolling hills that offered panoramas of the Divide as well as a vast area to the south known as South Park.  The sun was low and the lighting was awesome, and the trail just kept presenting view after view.  I ended up finding a flat area in a stand of aspen with a view of Georgia Pass, the place where I'll cross the Divide tomorrow or the next day.  And I am very glad I didn't stay in that little campsite tucked by a river.

Lost Creek Wilderness

Day 4

Miles hiked today:  13.1
Miles from Denver: 49.4
Elevation: 10,200 ft
Segments 3,4
Landmarks:  Pike National Forest, Lost Creek Wilderness Area

VIEW MAP

I found out a very important detail about my new tent last night; it leaks.  There was a massive thunderstorm and then just rain that lasted through most of the night, and almost as soon as it started I knew I was in trouble.  Water was coming through the fabric, through the seams and up from along the mesh on the sides.  I had diligently seam sealed this tent when I first got it, but this is really my first time using it.  After a few minutes of feeling the rain drops on my face, I just put all of my stuff away that I didn't want to get wet and went to sleep.  I awoke with a puddle in my tent and a wet sleeping bag.  Thankfully it had stopped raining in the morning but all of my stuff was wet.  It was cold too, and I couldn't stop thinking about what would happen if it rained all day and was cold again tonight.  Thankfully, right around 10:30 AM I came across a small clearing just as the sun was coming out.  I dumped all of my stuff out of my pack and laid it in the sun for an hour, which dried everything perfectly.  My morale was improved 100%, and as I shouldered my pack I could physically feel the weight difference from all the evaporated water.

I ran into another thruhiker today, this one going my way.  He said he started yesterday!  Those are big miles.  It was nice to chat and hike for a little bit with another thru hiker.  He'll probably put down another 20 miles by the end of the day, so I doubt I'll catch him.

Lost Creek Wilderness is the first of six wilderness areas the CT goes through.  This place has a very interesting history.  There is a creek (called Lost Creek) that at times goes underground, reappearing further downstream nine times.  But there are legends that gold was hidden somewhere in this area by the notorious Reynolds gang which used to hold up stagecoaches and whatnot in nearby Southpark.  (Yes, THAT Southpark)

As for the trail through here, I couldn't be more disappointed.  The trail simply follows an old logging road (built by H.W. Hooper in the 1880s, according to the guidebook) at a consistent, unchanging direction and angle for nearly 8 miles.  That's about it.  The climb is relentless, going from 8,280 ft to 10,880 feet.  There are no views or breaks in the scenery, and because all of these forests were logged, the trees are all the same exact size, in perfect rows.  The most exciting part of it is that I'm now above 10,000 feet!

I'm camped in this beautiful 5 mile long meadow, which happens to also be where ranchers put their cattle in the summer.  So there is a cow pie a foot from my tent, and the water I got from the stream was yellow.  I think this is the first time I made sure to boil for the full 3 minutes.