I left the cottage by 7:30 and headed west, across the high plains with low wet clouds and a few sprinkles of rain. The windshield wipers were running on low for the first hour. It was cold, I had to wear a fleece jacket while packing up, to leave. I arrived in the Springs around 9:30 and picked up the last-minute supplies before heading into the mountains, past Pikes Peak, still with a little snow, and on through Woodland Park, Florissant, and finally Lake George.
The South Platte was beautiful, running green and gin clear, looking very fishy. Tough to just drive by and stick with the plan. Then I came upon Taryall creek, a beautiful little stream that parallels the road for a few miles at the turn off to the trailhead. There were a couple of fly fisherman as I slowed down for the turn, I went slow over the bridge, checking out another beautiful stream that I am just driving by, hmm.
It’s all private property and very pretty, the little stream sluicing through hay fields and green valleys, snaking in big loops with riffles and runs, singing a siren’s song. It is mostly private all the way to Taryall Reservoir, but there are a couple short runs on National Forest. I have not been up the road to the reservoir before but the map shows two NF Campgrounds and two trailhead parking lots. The ownership map shows the NF controlling about a quarter mile of river at the Ute Creek Trailhead parking lot. Another opportunity for a recon trip in the not too distant future.
The Trailhead
Twelve miles of NF gravel put me at the Goose Creek Trailhead. The road is good, passable by most automobiles, though there are quite a few washboards at the corners. I didn’t see anyone on the way in and cell reception completely evaporates at the first big hill after the turnoff. The trailhead parking lot had about 30 or so cars when I got there at noon. Lost Creek Wilderness is not only the closest Wilderness area to where I live in Emerald City, it’s the closet one to the two major metropolitan areas on the Front Range, so I expect it’s one of the most used wilderness areas in the state of Colorado.
After 4 hours of driving to get here, it’s time for the real action to get started. I have new boots that I will be wearing for the first real workout they’ve had; I’m always a little fearful of blisters when breaking in a new pair of boots. The backpack too has never been tested with a real load in the wilderness, though I have owned it for a couple of years. The plan’s to hike in, on Goose Creek Trail for 4.5 miles and bushwhack down through Reservoir Gulch to a spot on Lost Creek.
I stopped at the trailhead register and filled out a user form that is required in Lost Creek Wilderness, promising to follow the rules. One of the requirements is dogs must be on leashes, so I’m glad I didn’t bring Max as we would both have a pretty unsatisfactory experience if I had to walk him on a leash through the forest with a fifty pound backpack hanging on my back. Max is a four year old, 60 pound French Brittany that is used to having his own head when we are outdoors hiking, fishing or hunting birds. He is well behaved and is a well mannered close hunter, always frequently checking back in and looking for direction. He is almost perfect at coming in when called, BUT he really does not respect the leash much when he is out in nature, he is used to running, romping, sniffing and of course cocking his leg on all the trees and rocks.
Wilderness Experience
I met about 30 people on the way in and was thinking, so much for the wilderness experience but it turned out not to be an issue. Half the folks looked to be day hikers, a couple of backpacking couples were coming out walking their dogs and one group of high school age students or at risk teens were headed my way, loaded down like pack mules. I passed them at the turnoff to a group of historic buildings; they had taken their packs off and left them in a little open flat area on the north side of the trail that is a camp site.
I thought about hiking down to the buildings but quickly determined I would stop and have a look on the way back out. Later on, the teen group, came back past as I was taking a break. I sat on a big granite boulder about 50 feet off the trail and watched them all parade past in single file, on the narrow trail. About a dozen, large packs with tennis shoes and other assorted accoutrements hanging off the sides and back. It looked like a third world scene, high in the Andes or something. Then one teen uttered some gnarly french laden epitaph about another one and ruined the vision.
The wilderness is probably more important to a group like this, than for an old guy, like me. I pondered the role of wilderness in our lives and how much it has improved my life experience and how I might pay it forward some way to improve the lives of others, as I kicked back on my rock and waited for them to get a good ways up the trail before I put my boots back on. I had less than a quarter mile to the saddle in the ridge I was looking for to start my bushwhack and I didn’t want to give away where I was headed.
The drainage and saddle were easy to spot and I turned off the trail and headed up a gentle hill through the pine forest towards a bright spot on the horizon through the branches, that I judged to be the lowest point in the saddle. A good plan I suppose but in retrospect, I found a nice trail leading into Reservoir Gulch another quarter mile up the main trail on my way out. It would have been much more pleasant than the route I took.
Joys of Bushwhacking
I found the trail eventually on the way in. Two thirds of the way into the drainage on my unpleasant bushwhack; car, house and mountain size granite boulders blocking the way on one side and steep scree slopes and dense brush on the other side. Me trying to balance the 50 pound pack as I slid down the slope, grabbing trees and brush to slow the descent. That’s the joy of bushwhacking I suppose, you never really know what’s out there just by looking at a map, you need to get out there and explore.
Once I found the trail, I followed it and was rewarded by walking around one of the large granite monoliths right into a beautiful gently sloping aspen glade in the bottom of the drainage. As I meandered through the grove admiring the yellow wild flowers, I came upon a small grove of old growth pine. A small group of five very old trees tucked into an alcove next to a large granite slab. The little valley was surrounded on all sides by large granite formations and right in a little clearing was a fire circle of granite stones. It surrounded on three sides by various logs, a few large old rotting pine logs and half a dozen fallen aspen trees that had been laid in formation.
Under one of the grandmother trees, there were a dozen 2-4 inch diameter aspen logs neatly stacked. I took off my pack to better examine the area. I stopped the hike log on the Garmin, about 5.5 miles from the Jeep and it was 3:30 in the afternoon. The original plan was to hike another half mile down into the Lost Creek drainage, but it didn’t take long to adjust the plan to the current paradigm.
Grandfather Grove
I could hear water running down the slope and about a 100 feet down a gentle trail there was a little plunge pool, playing it’s beautiful melody in a little green glade. Perfect to sit at with the water filter and collect the nights supply of water. It was settled, stay here in this beautiful little camp and explore the lower section tomorrow without the pack.
I spent a leisurely hour setting up camp; find the best site for the tent, get the bed set up and hang the hammock. That was another feature of the site that attracted me right off. There were two younger trees right up next to the granite, the perfect distance for putting up the hammock. Once that was done I set up the kitchen, which in this instance was a Jetboil and a camp chair in the fire pit area. I brewed up a cup of herbal tea with some of the water I had collected at the plunge pool after getting the tent set up and reorganizing the pack.
I enjoyed the tea while rocking gently in the hammock, listening to the birds and staring off at one of the granite formations on the ridge across the drainage that looked like a camel head. I finished the tea and rested for awhile in the hammock, right on the edge of a nap that just never quite came. I did get to take my boots off though and it felt oh, so good. The boots had worked out nicely, not one hot spot.
I rolled out of the hammock, fished some gorp out of the pack for a snack, along with the camera and took a few pictures of the camp, trying to come up with a name for the place. I like to name my camps so they all have a unique identity when I plot them on my GIS system. After that I went on a short recon of the area to see if there was any perfectly seasoned pine for a fire, something besides aspen which was quite prolific. I can’t remember the last time I had a fire while backpacking. It’s usually more of a problem than it’s worth, so I usually cold camp, but I brought a small hatchet and my fold up Sven saw on this adventure with the thought of enjoying some time playing in the fire.
Fire Making
I had just restored the axe a couple of days ago. It has been resting in the window frame of the shop, all rusted and rejected, until I decided to make it like new again. So I put it back to it’s former glory as a valuable working tool and thought I would bring it along for a test run. I already used it to drive the tent stakes into the stiff granitic soil. I found a nice sized down pine about 150 feet up slope from camp and sectioned it with the saw into a dozen good sized logs and hauled them back to the fire circle, where I split them with the hatchet into just the right size for a controlled fire. I gathered up some good kindling pieces from the area as well, along with the shavings from splitting the logs; ready for a fire this evening.
Time to make dinner, before it get’s dark. I’ve been pondering for the last month or so, how to assemble DIY backpack meals that are healthy. For years I simply threw as many packs of Ramen as nights I was going to be out, plus a couple extra for those long days. I did the same thing with oatmeal packets for the other end of the day and 3 or 4 bags of gorp and maybe something to throw in with the noodles; jerky, tuna packets, cheese or something else.
I have even recently purchased a set of two ceramic coated pots and a separate stove, so that I can be more creative preparing meals out in the wild. I didn’t bring the new cook kit this time. I brought too many other luxuries and I have not assembled the dry products to build the more exotic but easy, pre-assembled meals. So I just brought the Jetboil along, a decade long friend that has prepared a lot of tea and Ramen.
Pasta – It’s Whats For Dinner
I did make an upgrade to the Ramen though, I packed a large ziplock with Quinoa pasta. It takes a bit longer to cook but I expect it is much better nutritionally than Ramen and the mouth feel is nice, which I had already tested at the cottage, some weeks ago. Vickie brought me two foil pouches of tuna and two of pink salmon from the store when she came yesterday. The plan was to mix a packet with a couple handfuls of cooked pasta, a few seasonings and a bit of cheese for a fairly healthy and tasty classic – Tuna Noodles.
It worked pretty well on the first night, a little too much water perhaps, the broth was a little thin but it was the first time with the new noodles and it tasted wonderful, but considering the hike in and the fact that the only other thing I had to eat today was some gorp, shoe leather would have probably tasted wonderful.
Sunset was scheduled for about 8:20 and it came right on schedule and that’s just about the time I lit the fire. The sky stayed pretty bright all evening; it was a full moon and I was hoping I could capture a good shot of the moon rising over one of the granite formations, but the walls of the drainage were pretty steep and it would be a number of hours before I would actually see it. I never got the moon picture, judging about where the camel formation was across the way I would have probably gotten a good angle at 3 AM, but I was long gone, sound asleep by then.
The fire was out and doused by 11:00 and it was off to test the other new piece of kit I was checking out this trip – a new sleeping bag. The old bag I have been using the last 5 or 6 years is still a good bag, though it is not anywhere near the spec anymore which is thirty degrees. I used it with a liner which I hoped would increase the warmth, but I froze my butt off in elk camp last year and was jonesing for a new down bag. I did a bit of research and was aimed at a Western Mountaineering bag for quite awhile but couldn’t quite pull the trigger because of the cost.
Bags, Bags and More Bags
They are worth every cent I expect based on the research, but on a limited income, the big ticket items are always tough. Especially when it’s not something critical and I already own two other serviceable bags, just not the exact right bag for Colorado. Living in Texas for three decades the 30 degree North Face was more than enough bag for most trips. The other one is a 4 season bag that’s warm as toast, but it’s a poly bag and takes up half the backpack, even after beating up on it with a multi-strap compression stuff sack.
What I wanted for the collection, was a 0 degree down bag that packed small and would deal with 95% of the weather conditions I will be dealing with for the mountains. I’m glad I waited, this spring my REI dividend came and it was enough to cover the Western Mountaineering bag I was pining for. Also I didn’t need to explain to Vickie why I needed to spend several hundred dollars on a new sleeping bag when I already have 3 good ones.
I started checking the REI website and realized quickly that they didn’t carry Western Mountaineering kit, so I was going to have to find something else. I had narrowed it down to two or three bags but still couldn’t pull the trigger. Fate stepped in again a week or so later when I got a notification by email that one of the bags I was interested in was shipped off to the REI garage where they discounted it by 35%. I was sold, I had enough dividend leftover to buy the new stove, ceramic pans and a new wool sweater.
The bag is a Nemo. I have a convertible Nemo sleeping pad and it is the best pad that I’ve ever used and have not had any problems with it in 3-4 years. So I was anxious to see how the bag performed and was it ever nice. The bag is cut very wide but draws up nice and tight. I toss and turn quite a bit and like to rotate from side to side as well as on my back. I have quite wide shoulders and was always getting stuck in my narrow mummy bags, with barely enough room to get the zipper up.
By the third night I was so comfortable with the new setup that I was getting just as restful sleep as I get back at the cottage on the latex mattress. It explodes out of the compression sack, filling up the entire tent. A mass of down that looked like a cloud there in the confines of the minuscule solo tent; have to save weight somewhere. I slept a little too warm the first night, but after that, I slept with no clothing and played with the two vents on the chest of the bag, which claim to reduce the temp rating by 20 degrees. I don’t know about that, but I do know that this bag and I are likely to become very good trail companions, I like what I see so far.
Lost Creek
It was getting pretty bright, when I decided to crawl out of the sack at around 6:00 on Wednesday morning. I enjoyed a cup of instant coffee, before tightening the boot laces and heading off down the canyon to Lost Creek. There’s trail for about the first 200 yards and then I ran into a jumble of house sized boulders plugging up the entire bottom of the drainage. The creek just merrily tinkled it’s way downstream underneath the granite, but that wasn’t going to work for me. I was going to have to go over or around.
I chose around this time, going high left, probably because it was close to one of the routes I had worked up off the topos and air photos. It was steep, rocky, loose and probably no place for a 50 pound pack, but once I got around the granite mass I was in the Lost Creek drainage. It was not exactly what I was expecting. It was difficult to get to the stream in most places being surrounded by muddy hummocks, giant rocks or a dense barrier of willows.
I did get close to the stream in several locations and seen some small brookies working in the current. I made it down to the spot I had picked out from the maps, as having the right qualities for a camp and sure enough, the site had been used as a camp before but not recently. The small fire circle had been kicked apart. It was an interesting spot, a horseshoe of granite with the creek rolling by at the open end. No trees though, so no fire and no place to hang the hammock, not even close to the quality of the site I’m already setup in. I think subconsciously, I decided right then just to stay on another night at Grandfather Grove – came up with a name. I worked my way back up the canyon, but never seen anything better than the high right route which I took again on the way back.
Relax in the Wilderness
Time for some oatmeal and more tea. After breakfast I kicked back in the hammock and perused the paper map I had brought to determine what my options were for exploration. After some consideration I decided to stay in Grandfather Grove for another night and then move camp down to a beautiful open meadow I’d seen on the way in and get a couple days of fishing. There was good access to the stream for fishing, so taking the safe option seemed like a good idea, instead of chasing after another dream location and missing.
Wouldn’t have found the Grandfather Grove without the risk of chasing after the dream site, but I figured statistically it was not likely again on the same trip to stumble onto a prime site and I really want to go fishing, not just constantly untangle my lure from willow bushes, so the plan was to head back downstream, the next day.
I spent the day wandering the general vicinity, checking trails, animal sign and wood supply. In the afternoon I finished cutting the rest of the fallen pine and sectioned up and split a well seasoned down aspen. Plenty of wood for a fire and extra to increase the size of the stash nestled in the protective arms of the Grandmother tree. I hung the solar shower bag in the tree this morning but it didn’t look like it was going to get enough direct sun, to get it heated to a comfortable temperature.
Rotting Away
I spent an hour or so climbing and exploring the mass of granite to the north. I was hoping to find an intriguingly shaped tree growing out of the granite to shoot photos of. I found a good one but could not find a way to get close enough for pictures. I have been a lot more careful climbing on rock when I am soloing, since I read the tale of Aron Ralston. The young man who got his hand trapped between rocks in Utah and sat in the canyon alone for six days, his hand rotting away before his very eyes, until finally in desperation he sawed it off with a dull swiss army knife, wrapped it with his dirty shirt and walked to his car.
I spent the late afternoon cleaning up and organizing the camp; rearranging logs, cleaning up any loose trash to burn off in the fire that evening and whittling a small dead tree into a fire tending staff with the hatchet. The staff looked like something Gandalf would carry with him through the forest, so I had to find an enchanting location for it to await the arrival of the next fire tender to visit Grandfather Grove.
Pink Salmon tonight with the pasta, I used two packs instead of one and got the water to pasta ratio closer to perfection, so dinner was even better tonight than on Tuesday night. I had a cup of tea and broke in the new fire staff before calling it a night quite a bit earlier than Tuesday in anticipation of getting an early start in the morning.
It was a bit warmer on Thursday morning, when I crawled out of the sack at around 6:00. Undershirt, sweater, down vest, fingerless gloves and stocking hat were required for brewing coffee and taking down camp, but I was in short sleeves by the time I hit the trail. I followed the trail out, it was pretty steep in the lower section but flattened out nicely up in the saddle. I was happy to see the trail fork was well camouflaged where it met the main trail. It’s unlikely that anyone hiking the main trail would inadvertently stumble onto the spur. I marked the location with my GPS.
I stopped at the old cabin ruins on the way back down the trail. One of the cabins is in pretty good condition, a classic example of the craftsmanship of the time. Over a hundred years old and it still looked as solid as the granite formations that surround it. The buildings were built in the late 1800’s as lodging for an evaluation team that was studying the feasibility of building a dam on the creek. Glad that one didn’t play out, all we need is one more dam in the South Platte drainage.
I made it to the upper end of the meadow by about 9:00 and was thinking about food. I had decided to go ahead and hike the few hours it would take and then eat once I found a camp. As I turned off the main trail onto the steep spur that led to the bottom of the meadow, I heard voices and moved slower and quieter until I spotted the source. Three backpackers were chatting as they walked downstream. I don’t think they were ever aware of my presence, but I decided to poke around upstream for my camp.
Gone Fishing, Better than just a Wishing
When I got to the bottom I took the pack off and did a quick recon and found a log that looked like it would be no problem to cross with my walking sticks. After reviewing the topo map I noticed what was likely to be a nice meadow up the side drainage, just on the other side of the log crossing. I went back for the pack and took it across the log before heading up the creek to see what I could find. There were dozens of trails cutting this way and that through the willows. It was obviously a popular location. I found a nice track that led up the side drainage to a good size meadow with green grass, wild flowers and a granite stone fire pit right in the middle, which was also surrounded by a dozen fallen aspen carcasses.
The camp was not as pristine as Grandfather Grove. It had a kind of used, dingy feeling to it. I could see that a fairly large group of folks had used the site over the Memorial day weekend. They left a bunch of unburned nasty corn cobs in the fire pit and there was a hole dug off to the side of the fire pit with a half dozen still good potatoes laying in the bottom. I suppose they were going to bury them with hot coals for some baked potatoes but got too drunk to complete the task and the just left them uncovered to rot in the sun. I thought for a moment about fishing the garbage out of the fire pit and burying everything in the hole, but the site just didn’t have the same kind of energy as Grandfather Grove and I wasn’t compelled to make it any better.
I found a shady spot, in a little grove of trees away from the fire pit area that had a couple of hammock trees and got out the Jetboil and the camp chair to make a cup of tea. I was going to make some oatmeal too, since I skipped breakfast this morning, figuring I would eat something once I had established a new camp. It had warmed up and oatmeal didn’t seem all that appealing, so I ate some gorp and a bag of pistachios with the tea.
The hammock was easy but it took awhile before I found a soft level spot that I liked well enough to set up the tent. It took another cup of tea before I could commit to the site, but once I had decided, camp went up fast and I had already determined that I didn’t want a fire tonight, so one less thing to deal with. I did have to deal with water though and that is the downside at Baked Potato Camp. It’s about 500 feet down to the stream for water.
While I was kicking back, enjoying my tea in the camp chair, I assembled an ultra lite spinning rod which was the weapon of choice for this trip. I mounted the reel and tied on a #0 size inline spinner and leaned the rod up against a tree. I consulted the Garmin for the solunar predictions and it said it was a good day and the best fishing time was 1:30 -3:30 PM. I fished the entire slot and it was work. The mixture of willows, casting targets the size of a quarter and a steep drop-off into the creek, made for difficult fishing.
This was exacerbated by reel / line issues. I had just put the line on the reel recently and had put too much line on the reel and wound it on backwards creating twist in the line. Every time I opened the bail without enough tension on the line, it would come springing off the reel in coils, lassoing any stray willow stem or branch. It also did it at the end of any short flip style cast. So even when I made the perfect little delicate flip cast to the quarter size target next to the undercut bank. The line came burbling off the reel into a bird nest of monofilament and willow branches.
This problem plagued me for the first 30 minutes or so until I finally got enough line cut off that it stayed on the reel a bit better. I caught a half dozen fish. The way the fish were feeding I should have caught 2 dozen in that amount of time, I just couldn’t keep the lure in the water long enough; too busy untangling monofilament.
All of the fish were pretty small, 4-6 inches. I could see some bigger ones in the creek but not much bigger. To be honest, Lost Creek is probably not the best place to go if fishing is a key priority. The water is skinny, the fish are small and did I mention willows. On the plus side, the little brook trout seem to be hungry all of the time and will attack almost anything chucked into the water. It was pretty warm and the sun was pretty strong so I headed back to camp to find some shade at 3:30.
After some hammock time in the shade, I took a walk up the little rounded hill to the north of camp. It seemed out of place surrounded by severe granite formations. A little open, rounded hill sparsely covered in Ponderosa Pine. I have always enjoyed the openness of Ponderosa groves, park like, with no understory. I hiked to the top of the hill and then down a similar symmetrically rounded ridge to a saddle where the hill connected to the side of the mountain, a mountain of granite boulders and slabs.
Fallen Soldiers
I wandered around the rock for awhile, looking for some photo opportunities. Dropping into the top of the valley that camp is in, I walked down through the center of the valley, which was covered by hundreds of downed aspen. They littered the floor of the valley is if a giant had spilled his toothpick holder, laying every which way and making the hike into camp more of a gymnastics trial than a hike.
Some event had caused almost all of the aspen in the valley to be forced to the ground, in agony and pain. I was looking at the skeletal remains of some great battle and the army of aspen had definitely lost. They were doing a pretty good job now though, of protecting the lower end of the valley. I worked up out of the fallen soldiers, to the north and contoured just above the carnage along the hillside back to camp.
I rested in the hammock as the sun dropped behind the massive granite ridge to the west and worked on the decision of whether I should go fishing again this evening or just relax here in the hammock. The hammock already had me secure in her loving embrace, which slowly but surely overpowered any desire I had to go do battle with the willows again. I relaxed until dinnertime and prepared the last batch of Tuna Noodles. It was a smaller batch than the two previous ones, because I didn’t dole out the pasta evenly.
I guess the handful method is not the best technique. I could here voices echoing and wafting on the breeze as I cooked dinner and knew there were some campers, probably at the southeast end of the meadow. The entire meadow is only about 300-400 yards long and it seems to be a pretty popular place with a dozen excavated camping sites on it’s perimeter. The one on the lower end is the premium one though, on a gently rounded finger coming off the main ridge.
The finger is sparsely populated with large Ponderosa pines and extends down to the stream, right where the meadow ends and the stream makes it’s exit. A little waterfall that provides the perfect, melodic, sleeping music. It’s one drawback is that it’s right out in full view of the main trail and only about a mile and a half from the parking lot, so there’s no privacy.
Over dinner and tea I hatched a new plan. Pull up stakes in the morning, hike out to the Jeep and drive on up through the Hayman burn to Deckers and try my luck on the South Platte before heading into Denver to visit mom. I got my best nights sleep of the trip on Thursday night, not sure if I was just more tired or I had gotten used to sleeping on the ground. Either way I conked out quickly and didn’t stir until dawn. It was a pretty uneventful walk out.
Exit Stage Left
I stopped for a few pictures and ran into one trail runner and a group of 3 young male day hikers. 17 miles to Deckers, through the Hayman burn. The Hayman Fire was the largest wild fire in Colorado recorded history. It burned for over a month back in the summer 2002, decimating a vast area of almost 140,000 acres, forcing the evacuation of over 5000 people and costing over $40 million dollars. It was eerie to drive through the former forest, which is now completely bald except for the groves of the still standing dead. Miles and miles of bald hill and mountain tops.
When I got to Deckers I found that highway 67 along the S. Platte to Sedalia was closed to through traffic and the temperature was already well into the eighties, so I decided not to go fishing and backtracked to Deckers Road and took it up to 285 and headed for Denver, where it was 95 degrees, no need for the wool sweater.
Overall it was a good three day trip, all of the untested gear worked flawlessly, the weather was beautiful and Lost Creek Wilderness is definitely worth I visit. I expect that I will be back to do a little more exploring. While it is not as remote as many of my favorite wilderness areas, it is close. I can easily drive to the trailhead in the morning and get well down the trail to set up camp and still have plenty of day light to explore the forests and streams.
That’s not possible on the west slope or down to southern Colorado. I already have a plan for the next trip. There is a gentle saddle between two massive granite formations, across the creek and just northwest of the Grandfather Grove that drops down into Lost Creek where there is a nice wide 400 yard long meadow. The air photos show a promising grove of large trees up against a hillside of granite boulders. Could it be the dream site? Grandfather Grove II perhaps?