Mummy Backpacking

Well, we tried to have a nice backpacking trip. Our plan was to hike a bunch of peaks in the Mummy Range in Rocky Mountain National Park and spend two nights along the way.

On Sunday, we hiked up the Lawn Lake trail until shortly after a set of switchbacks. From there we headed off trail, ascended rough terrain to a saddle, and picked a route up Bighorn Mountain.

The Diamond face of Long's Peak

Given the name of the mountain we were hoping for sheep. No sheep. It was a nice summit anyway, but we didn't stay long since the clouds were starting to get pretty dark.

Tileston and its "bump" in the midground; Mummy Mountain on the horizon

Back down to the saddle and then up towards Mount Tileston. There was a bump along the way to Tileston so we hit that first. As much as possible we tried to stay in the trees. From the bump summit we had a good look back at Bighorn; from the Tileston summit we could see Potts Puddle and imagine our campsite not too far beyond it.

Bighorn Mountain

Potts Puddle just above Laurel's head

Heading down Tileston we came across a smaller lake that we had to hike around. We meandered back to the trail and found our campsite. Expecting rain any minute we thought it wise to set up our tent and a tarp lean-to to protect our bags. Just as we had everything set up it started to rain, so in the tent we went.

Roaring River's path of destruction from the Lawn Lake Dam failure

About an hour later, after a break in the rain, we decided to make dinner -- got the stove lit and dinner cooking and it started to rain again. We had rain jackets on but it was pouring so we sheltered under a tree. Then the thunder and lightning started again, and close by -- 5 seconds between lightning and thunder. Our stove, dinner, and a measuring cup were still out in the rain. The storm stalled directly above us: heavy rain and small hail. There was one enormously loud crack of thunder simultaneous with a flash of lightning. By the time the worst of the storm had passed the measuring cup had an inch of water in it. We ate dinner under the tree in the rain and went to sleep. Our tent was fairly dry but some rain had splashed in under the fly and through the mesh.

The "privy"

We had plenty of excuses to cut our trip short: the same lousy forecast for Monday night, a twisted ankle, a non-functioning water filter (at least we brought it this time!) So we dried out and packed up Monday morning and had an easy hike on the trail back to the car.


View Bighorn-Tileston in a larger map

Huron Peak (almost)

Given how bad the "trail" was descending Missouri Mountain yesterday -- basically nonexistent -- we were concerned about ascending Huron today. Our backup plan, if we couldn't find (or hike) the trail, was to exit via the 4wd road and hopefully be able to cross the creek at some point.

Fortunately we found the "trail". On the Trails Illustrated map, this trail was drawn with the same thickness and line style as all the others, so we had assumed it would actually be like the others -- well defined. Nope.

First problem was finding the trailhead. It was supposed to be at the end of the 4wd road but somehow we missed it. No problem, we navigated through the woods to the north end of the lake where the trail crosses the "intermittent stream" (as described on the map).

Just before reaching the stream we saw a small aspen grove that had been broken in half like a bunch of toothpicks. The upper parts of the trees were scattered 100 feet away. Our first thought was that a tornado touched down. Rare at that elevation, but there was a funnel cloud near Mt. Massive last June.

Later we realized that an avalanche had slid down a slope on the other side of the creek, crossed the creek, and slammed into the aspens. It must have been this winter because the aspens looked freshly broken. And it must have been a HUGE avalanche. There were even snow deposits remaining that probably otherwise would not have been where they were. You can see the avalanche path in a picture from yesterday and a close up from today:

Further up on the mountain we saw more evidence of the avalanche; the stump this tree was plucked from was nowhere in sight:

Back to the "intermittent creek". Once we saw it, we figured that "intermittent" referred to the wintertime when the stream is covered in snow. It was not an easy crossing! The current was strong, the creek was wide, the algae-covered rocks were slippery, and we were boot-deep or more in places. I had better luck than Laurel with my gaiters -- she had to wring out her socks and boots on the other side. My socks were pretty wet too.

Once across the stream we headed south for a short while on what looked like a trail (it even had horseshoe tracks) before realizing the map showed the trail heading north. Indeed it did, and then switchbacked up and around the avalanche slope. Avalanches are most common on slopes with angles between 30 and 45 degrees, and I would guess this hill was on the higher end of that range. Fortunately it was vegetated, so the footing was more secure than yesterday's similarly-steep slope. On the other hand, it was quite vegetated, so it was difficult to hike in some places and in other places we lost the trail entirely.

Aspen thrive in the wake of an avalanche; the density and maturity of unbroken aspen further up on the slope hinted that the most recent avalanche may have only taken out the lower half of the slope, or else the bed of the avalanche was 15' off the ground.

Past the avy slope we navigated around a horn of rock cliffs, through a bog (I took one step in boot-deep mud!), and up a meadow. Since crossing the stream, the trail was so faint that we were only sure we were on it half the time.

The next challenge: a scree/boulder field. Fortunately not as steep as yesterday's. At this point we were starting to see some weather come in. Today was supposed to be better than yesterday, but our forecast was necessarily over a day old at that point and it didn't look like that was the case.

The rock slope flattened out for a while and then we had a decision to make. The map showed the "trail" ascending a steep scree field to the south, up to a saddle. But once on that saddle, it appeared it would be impossible to follow the ridge west to the main ridge of the mountain without some technical climbing. It seemed like the better way up was to continue west up the north end of a steep grassy hill to a secondary plateau, then somewhat southwest up to a different saddle. We did exactly that without any trouble at all.

With all the difficulties of the day, it was after 11am by the time we reached that saddle. The clouds had formed quite well by that point, so even though the summit of Huron was "only" 0.6 miles and 600 vertical feet away, we decided to bail. We headed directly towards a switchback on the main hiking trail, hiking across a slope of moderately sized rocks and a small snow slope. About halfway across it started raining lightly which made the rocks nice and slick.

Lots of challenges today, but we had a good time working them out. The remainder of the day was relatively uneventful -- we hiked down the trail for a few miles and then a few more miles along the road to get back to where we had parked.

As for the map -- it has quite a few strikes against it now: two trails drawn in the wrong locations, a raging "intermittent stream", and minor trails drawn with no distinction from major trails. Still, they are fairly good maps, but I think we've learned not to trust them exclusively and to check other sources next time.

Missouri Mountain

"Oh, it's an ass. I thought it was a mountain goat." Laurel sounded relieved. I took a few steps further on the trail and saw a guy in white shorts bending over to tie his shoes or something. Hmm... didn't look like a mountain goat to me. I took another few steps and saw a white donkey!

We took off for a few days to hike 14ers in the Sawatch range. Laurel had picked out a bunch of mountains, and I had the idea of linking together Missouri and Huron into a two-day backpacking trip (which became a bit of an epic adventure).

Most of the trip up Missouri was familiar territory, as we had taken that trail to hike Belford and Oxford last year. Once we got to the turn-off for Missouri, things got more interesting. The trail became steep and rocky with some exposure in a few places.

Along the way we ran into a guy hiking with his son. The father had fallen and dislocated his shoulder. My first-hand knowledge of dislocated shoulders finally came to use -- I explained how to reduce the dislocation and it actually worked!

We summited Missouri soon after that. The weather wasn't good enough to attempt the two peaks to the south, Iowa and Emerald. Emerald looked neat, maybe some other time we'll hike it.

From the Missouri summit we could see Huron, which looked very far away. Clohesy Lake was out of sight but we knew it was in the valley between the two 14ers. Just a matter of following the trail down to it... or so we thought.

Our Trails Illustrated map showed a "trail" descending from the saddle between Missouri and Iowa, down into a cirque, then down further into the valley. We hiked to where the trail should have begun. It appeared others had gone down at that point, so we figured that was it.

This was no trail! The slope was very steep and covered in loose sand, gravel, and rock -- all of which was treacherous to descend. It took us forever to glissade down 1,000 vertical feet of nasty rock. Our heavy backpacking packs didn't make it any easier.

Once in the bowl we managed to find a trail that seemed to go in the right direction. The interesting thing was that the trail also went in the other direction up a grassy slope to a ridge, and presumably up the ridge to the Missouri summit. That would have been a much nicer descent. (The next day we saw that trail drawn correctly in the Roach 14ers book. Trails Illustrated just plain got it wrong. Strike one.)

We got to the lake, set up camp, made dinner, and did a little exploring. It seemed like we had the whole area to ourselves. Other than hiking up and over a 14er, the only approach was on a long 4wd road with a difficult creek crossing, so we really didn't expect to see anyone. However, we did hear some hikers a few times in the night, one person said "Hey look, a tent!" Guess they were as surprised to see someone else as we were to hear them.

The other surprise for the night was that somehow I managed to pack up our water filter without the actual filter itself, so we used iodine instead.

The clouds turned a beautiful shade of red as the sun set behind the mountains.

IPW Backpacking, Day 6

The wind blew all night, right until we were ready to get up. I think I slept for 20 minutes, three separate times. Of course, as soon as the wind stopped and we got out of the tent, the flies were back. At least it wasn't raining though!

We had a quick breakfast of hot oatmeal and wanted to hit the trail early. The dark chocolate cheesecake from the night before had other plans, so our start time was pushed back to 7:30.

Upper and Lower Coney Lakes

The goal for the day was Mount Audubon and Paiute Peak. We have been on Audubon several times before in various seasons, but have never been able to traverse to Paiute. One time we tried to ascend Paiute from Mount Toll, but that didn't work either.

Blue Lake and the snowfields around Mt. Toll

To make it a loop hike, we decided to first travel off trail to summit Audubon's sub-summits. We tagged them all (two or three, depending on how you count) then picked up the trail for the last bit up Audubon. The number of other hikers surprised us, but then again it is a popular hike and it was the weekend.

Audubon's summit

We summited at 9:45 and decided to continue on the ridge despite the iffy clouds. Thirty minutes later we re-evaluated. Probably only 45 minutes from the summit of Paiute, we turned around. Once again, we shook our fists at Paiute!

As close as we got to Paiute Peak

Typical for this trip, it was hailing when we got to the tent. We waited out yet another storm, packed everything up quickly and hit the trail to the car. There were dark clouds to the south and north of us so we knew it would rain again.

We made awesome time to the end of the Beaver Creek Trail, talked to a park employee about the weather and recent rescue attempts (two days we saw low-flying helicopters and small planes overhead), and walked down the road to the Long Lake Trailhead where the car was parked. Not three minutes later the rain and thunder resumed.

Pika

We saw a lot of wet weather on this trip, but hopefully the pictures show that we saw a lot of other fantastic things as well.

The loop was about 30 miles and we made about 20 miles of excursions. Over 6 days we gained and lost 16,000 feet elevation. We attempted to summit all but one mountain (Thunderbolt / Blackfoot) that was on our original plan. We summited all but two peaks (Coney, Paiute) that we attempted. Overall, that's a successful trip, and it was a lot of fun too!

IPW Backpacking, Day 5

We woke up early (5:15) to a gorgeous sunrise. Finally, a day where the weather seemed back to normal for Colorado (clear and sunny except for a passing thunder storm in the afternoon).

We ascended the east ridge of Sawtooth (class 3) which was a really fun scramble. We met two other hikers who had camped out the night before to do this climb. They said they saw three moose as they hiked by our camp -- lucky them!!!

After talking with Sean and Liz for a while on the summit, Laurel and I headed south on the Divide to Algonquin peak. We stopped first at unnamed point 12,155...

... and then started up the LONG ridge to the summit of Algonquin. Great views from that summit, but we didn't stick around long since the clouds were gathering.

We backtracked to the east ridge of Algonquin towards the valley between it and the smaller "mountain" known as Coney Island. The descent was supposed to be class 2, but we ended up on some nasty choss -- Laurel slid down the scree and I found some mostly-stable boulders to scramble down.

We wanted to try to summit Coney Island, but once again the storms forced us back to camp. On the way back we saw a helicopter fly by as we were hiking around Coney Lake. It must have been heading up to RMNP.

Just as the tent came into sight, we saw a group of trail runners on the trail a few thousand feet away. We figured it was a Boulder Trail Runners group (it was). Looked like fun!

(Click picture for a fully zoomed in view)

We once again waited for the storms to pass and packed up camp. We hiked the Buchanan Pass Trail east to the Beaver Creek Trail. Where the two trails intersect is actually outside the designated wilderness area. No big deal, there are plenty of places that are not "wilderness" that we've hiked, but as soon as we rounded the corner we were on a wide 4WD road. And right at that moment, a Jeep happened to be repeatedly driving through the river. His son was in the front seat and his young daughter was in the back wrapped in some sort of bag wearing goggles. Very strange, guess it kept her dry. After 5 days of only seeing a few people, a few aircraft fly over, and nothing else but nature, this was strange.

Within maybe a quarter mile we were back in the wilderness, continuing south on the Beaver Creek Trail. We wanted to get as far south as we could to be in good position fro the morning. We passed one large creek and didn't think to stop to filter water. We continued on for an hour to a spot we thought would be great for the night, which is when we realized we were running low on water.

After examining the map, we hoped to find the source of Beaver Creek. We hiked for a bit, and found a creek barely big enough to get water. Downhill a ways, Laurel found a great campsite. It was flat -- this would be the first night we wouldn't be rolling to the left or sliding down towards our feet! The weather was cooperating too -- it appeared that we would be able to make dinner without rain.

But instead of rain, there were flies/fleas/gnats swarming around us. They especially liked flying into our eyes, ears, and hair. It was disgusting. I made a very small smoky fire to try to get rid of them. It helped, but it was still not fun constantly waving our arms and hats around to scare them away. We cleaned up after eating chicken and dumplings (and chocolate cheesecake for dessert!) and settled down for the night. We killed all the flies in the tent and laid down. Twenty minutes later the wind started, and didn't stop until 6:30am. Not just a little breeze, either. We were just above treeline in an open meadow and the wind kept gusting enough that our tent poles would bend. Neither of us got much sleep.

(Oh yeah, and that nice flat campsite? Well, it turns out it was level, but it was not flat. There were large clumps of grass sticking into the smalls of our backs all night.)

IPW Backpacking, Day 4

We woke up to a cold morning. Luckily our campsite was situated high above the foggy valley floor. Despite our trouble setting up the tent in the rain, we actually had a fairly dry night.

After another hot oatmeal breakfast, we packed up and hiked back down to the Buchanan Pass Trail. Another long day ahead -- up and over the pass plus another mountain or two on the Divide if time and weather allowed.

The overgrown single-track trail wound through quintessential Rocky Mountain landscape -- jagged, rocky peaks, tall pine forests, and meadows of wild flowers in every color. It was very wet because of all the rain, so every time we had to squeeze through a clump of bushes we got soaked.

We summited Buchanan Pass. The last half mile of trail was super steep! We decided to skip Sawtooth Mountain, less than a mile south along the divide, because the clouds looked so threatening and it was already after 11am.

We hiked down the rocky east side of the pass and found a flat area near treeline to set up our tent. This location would set us up for a number of possible hikes the next day.

As soon as the tent was up and the bags were stashed under the tarp, it started storming. This time, we were dry and all our stuff was dry. Amazing! We played cards in the tent and looked at maps for a while, and before we knew it the storm had passed.

Once we thought it was all clear, we headed off trail towards Coney Island, a small mountain in the area. However, we only made it about a quarter mile before hearing thunder again. The rest of our route would be above treeline, exposed to lightning. Back to camp to wait it out. We decided instead to hike to Red Deer Lake, since the trail is entirely below treeline. It was another very pretty lake.

We hiked back to camp quickly to try to beat the rain, but failed. Once again, Laurel cooked dinner in the rain. It was great having warm soup on a cold rainy night. We ate Ramen noodles, soy nuts, and veggies under cover of a few trees -- delicious!