ilanarama | lakebagging

Some people are peakbaggers. They have a list of mountains to climb (Colorado fourteeners; the "seven summits"; etc) and they climb them.

Britt is a lakebagger. He wants to fish in every named lake in the Weminuche Wilderness. So last weekend, we backpacked into the area known as Mountain View Crest to bag four lakes: Ruby (one of many in the Weminuche), Emerald (ditto ditto), Webb, and Pear. I insisted on bagging a peak as well: Overlook Point, the high point (12,998) along Mountain View Crest. (Yes, it sounds like a subdivision. It's a ridge.)

The 360° view from Overlook Point (1 minute video, no audio, annotated):

The trailhead, at the end of Missionary Ridge Road, is all of 20 miles away - as the crow flies. It's 33 miles by road, most of which is a twisty dirt road, some of which is 4WD, so it took us nearly two hours to get there (not counting the rainstorm we hunkered down during). We started hiking at 5 pm Friday afternoon and set up camp a couple of hours later.

The next morning we left most of the camp set up as we hiked to the summit of Overlook Point. The approach from the south was an easy ramp, covered in grass and alpine sunflowers, but the north face drops precipitously to Pear Lake and the east face to Ruby Lake.

We returned to our camp and loaded everything back into our packs (sigh) and set out for Ruby, through meadows full of wildflowers including Indian paintbrush both red and pale. Over the pass, and down to Ruby, with Overlook Point behind it:

Ruby was full of fish, so Britt did a little catch-and-release before we headed down the absolutely stunning - and pretty much trail-less - valley toward Emerald Lake.

(By the way, those pointy things in the distance are high thirteeners Pigeon Peak (left) and Turret Peak (left-center). (The rounded one in the center is the fourteener Mt. Eolus.) One reason we did this hike was to scope out Pigeon, which we'd like to climb in early September. It's a rugged and impressive mountain, and you will see more pictures of it here :-)

Our second night was spent at Emerald Lake, which had mosquitoes worthy of Alaska but very few fish, none of which were willing to bite Britt's lure. So it was backpacking food, cooked in the tent as it rained much of the evening.

The next morning, we left our camp and set out to dayhike over the ridge behind Emerald (the saddle to the left of the pointy knoll in the left picture above) to reach Webb and Pear Lakes. (Again, no trail; we followed game trails where we could.) There was elk poop all over the place, and when we got to the saddle, we could hear elk somewhere below us. Incidentally, elk make weird high-pitched whines which totally seem wrong for such large creatures. We moved quietly and slowly down the hill, hoping to sneak up on them, but they must have been invisible.

At Webb Lake I settled down with a book while Britt practiced more catch-and-release. Then I heard a quick yelp like a raptor call - or rather, like Britt imitating a raptor - and looked over toward the lake. Britt had bent to release a trout, and was hidden (from the other side) by some fallen trees, when a herd of elk came down to the lake to drink.

After the elk left, we left too, hiking up the valley to Pear Lake, which had some beautiful columbine (Colorado's state flower) growing on its shores. Any fish that might have been in Pear ignored Britt entirely.

We returned to our camp and packed up, then hiked back up to Ruby Lake, where we set up camp for our final night. Britt fished there again, this time keeping two lovely large trout for our dinner. Which we had to have in the tent again. Storms threatened all through the late afternoon, and it rained from around 6pm to sometime between 2 and 3 am. Sigh. But the next morning, it was beautiful again - just in time for our hike out.