lakebagging

[ilanarama]

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.



Or, go directly to the set (23 photos, 1 video) on Flickr.

Comments

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

wow, that is STUNNING scenery. The mountains and flora remind me of Scotland. I wonder if it's a similar climate.

[barkley.livejournal.com]

Those pictures are gorgeous!

[beledibabe.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous!!! I love Colorado!

[eisoj5]

Pretty pretty pretty pretty!!! The columbine picture with the lake in the background is spectacular.

[sdwolfpup.livejournal.com]

Absolutely gorgeous. I really love the flower shots; the colors are striking.

[anavolena.livejournal.com]

These pictures are making me reconsider my bad attitude about camping. We're at that point with the horses where we're talking about taking pack trips, and scenery like this makes me realize why I should give it a go.

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

Magnificent scenery! And I love the thought of Columbines growing wild, instead of in carefully tended gardens.

[melusina]

These pictures are *gorgeous*! Sounds like a really fun trip. . .

[skuf.livejournal.com]

Britt is male? Hadn't realized, heh (Britt is a female name here).

Gah, I almost have trouble wrapping my head around there being places that look like that in the world!

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's gorgeous. Elk! And I'm obviously an Inexperienced Flatlander, because snow in July boggles my tiny mind.

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

Oh my, the scenery is fantastic. And the flower pics.

And the scale of the place - makes my country look puny.

[chickwriter.livejournal.com]

You take the niftiest photos!! Just gorgeous.

[starfishchick]

I had no idea Colorado was so green!

OMG ELK!

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Lake-bagging sounds really cool! That'd be what I'd be into, only I'd want to try to swim in every lake I came to. I'll bet they're mighty cold, though. (Not to mention the full-of-fish-ness, which would freak me out a little.)

Gorgeous scenery- I didn't know the columbine was Colorado's state flower, and I've never actually seen one flourishing in the wild.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's not as wet (although you couldn't prove it by me :-) I think we get a lot more sunny days, or at least sunny mornings, and a lot more snow in the winter, of course. But yeah, the above-treeline stuff looks a lot like (pictures I've seen of) Scotland.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Colorado thanks you kindly!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Thanks - me too!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

The wildflowers are just getting into peak season now. If you haven't yet hiked Engineer, you should - the meadow below the actual peak is the most stunning place for wildflowers in the area.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Thank you! As I said to Josie, the wildflowers are just coming into their peak, and they are just so incredible.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Pack trips are an entirely different sort of camping! You can take in big wall tents, sheepherder stoves, bottles of liquor (as opposed to a carefully husbanded 8 ounces in a Nalgene bottle) - it's real luxury. I've gone on a few pack trips with Britt's family.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Thank you! The high country meadows are just bursting with wildflowers right now, and in some places the columbines are so profuse it's like a blue and white blanket.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It was a great trip.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Hee, that's why he hates his name. (He has been making noises lately about changing it, but I think it's a lost cause at his age.) Here it's used for both sexes but is more likely to be a girl's name.

The world is filled with amazing and beautiful places! (Boom-dee-ada, boom-dee-ada...)

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

I remember the first time I was in Colorado - I was 6 or so, with my family - and we stopped by the side of the road on a mountain pass so I could make a July snowball. It's only at high elevations, of course, leftover from the winter - although I did get snowed on once while camping on the 4th of July.

I was so happy that Britt managed to get a couple of elk photos! Usually if we see them they are too far away to photograph.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Thank you! (On behalf of Colorado, of course.)

Actually, Britt and I were talking about the scale thing, about American wilderness vs the long-domesticated European continent. People have lived so long in Europe that most places have been settled; there are villages everywhere, and although there isn't the private-property-keep-out mentality there, when you are in e.g. the Alps (at least the places I have been) there are constant reminders of human settlement, from cabins to farms to villages.

By contrast, great swaths of the American west (not so much in the east) were mostly unexploited (modulo some mining exploration) when they were set aside. "Wilderness" in the US is an actual legal designation; motorized and mechanized (e.g. bicycle) transport is prohibited, and in general these areas are managed to minimize evidence of human impact. If not for the occasional jet flying overhead, one could imagine oneself the only human being in the world in some of these places.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks! (Actually, most of these pictures were taken by Britt. I think I can take credit for only two or three.)

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Oh, in the summer in the high country it rains every day. It's just beautiful. And full of ELK OMG! (Which is how I felt when I saw them, you can bet!)

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

The snowfields at the edge of the lake should give you a clue as to their temperature. :-)

Actually, when on a long backpack trip, we do take a swim now and again to rinse the sweat off. The trick is to do it in early afternoon, before the thunderstorms move in, on a sunny day. Not that it makes the water any warmer, but drying off on a sun-warmed rock with the sun beating down is quite nice.

Columbine are also edible!

[revbiscuit.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a great trip. Not that I'd ever get Pete to do anything like that. And I never knew of the legal designation of wilderness in the States. You learn something new every day.

It's a shame you didn't get good weather all the time, but at least it rained while you were asleep. I used to go camping years ago, and since here rain is pretty much assured every weekend, as long as the tent held the water out we always counted ourselves lucky if it only rained at night, LOL!

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

The scale is completely different to Scotland (where 3000-4000 feet is the norm for a good mountain), and you tend to have more bare rock at the high end. A lot of the Scottish mountains are more rounded, too, thanks to their age and some serious glaciation int eh last ice age.

Fantastic scenery as always. Was the elk in the second shot making a threat display? It seems to be taking a bit ofan interest in the photographer.

[(Anonymous)]

Elk!!! When I was a wee lad growing up in Denver, there weren't very many elk... in fact, I don't remember ever seeing one other than a stuffed-n-mounted one in the Moraine Park Vistor's center in RMNP.

Fast forward to 10 years ago and my first time back in 25 years. Camping in Moraine Park campground in September. Holy Moly, were there ELK!!! My parents (who were camping with us) were pretty amazed too. We wondered if there had been some sort of Elk repatriation program in Colorado while we had been elsewhere.

And yeah, weird noises. Sounded like someone opening and closing a really rusty screen door sometimes...

Beautiful pictures. I miss home (sniff)

Eric W.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

I don't think that elk even saw Britt. He was huddled behind some fallen logs and just stuck the camera up and randomly clicked and hoped. That's why the photo is a teeny bit out of focus (alas).

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Well, you leave Pete behind and come out here and we'll do a girl's trip!

The worst part of the rain was that it forced us to cook in the tent vestibule instead of sitting out looking at the scenery. And then on the last night it didn't quit raining, and I really had to pee...

But yeah, I didn't wear my rain gear at all other than using the pants for protection against wet vegetation that last morning. Nice not to hike in it.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't know how much of the population is due to what factors. They are certainly carefully managed, and the big problem here is lack of winter range (because people build houses on it). What I find fascinating is that during the American expansion into the west in the 1800s, elk were a plains animal, not a mountain animal. But the people came and settled the edges of the plains, and they moved up into the mountains.

I remember bicycling in RMNP and seeing all the elk! And yeah, in the fall, when they're bugling - wow. I was worried one would step in the road and I wouldn't be able to brake in time...

[ignazwisdom.livejournal.com]

SO BEAUTIFUL! And those elk pictures are awesome!

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

*crawls into pictures*

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm just so tickled that we were able to get some decent elk photos since we keep seeing them too far away.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

*hopes you brought a warm sleeping bag*