birthday hike
Aug. 4th, 2009 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaBritt's birthday was on Saturday, and as is our custom we headed out of town to spend it in the wilderness. Along with us were our friends Kristen and Rolfe; Rolfe wanted to hike up Hossick Peak, in the eastern part of the Weminuche Wilderness (near Pagosa Springs; we live closer to the west side and tend to hike that part of the Weminuche) and it is very easy to talk us into things that involve hiking and wilderness.
We picked up Kristen and Rolfe in our Sportsmobile and drove out past Williams Creek Reservoir, where we pulled off in an open bit of field sufficiently away from the NO CAMPING signs and sufficiently close to the Cimarrona trailhead. We set up the van, made dinner, drank a good bit of red wine and tequila, gawked at the rainbow that materialized right over our camp, and planned our hike. The trail would take us from 8400' up to a 12,400' ridge, then down to Hossick Lake at 11,900. From there we figured we could scramble up to the ridge above the lake that led to the 12,967' summit of Hossick Peak. In other words: lots of elevation gain and loss. Hard to tell distance because of switchbacks, but we guessed it might be 7 miles each way. HAHAHA were we ever wrong. (This is called foreshadowing.)
At any event, the next morning we got up with the sun, anticipating a long day, and were on the trail by 7:30. And it's a nifty trail! It runs right through a natural rock arch and by lots and lots and lots of wildflowers, including some that were BIGGER THAN US:
(That's Britt, Kristen, and me - the photo was taken by Rolfe - being eaten by a field of mostly cow parsnip, but also various lupines and larkspur, and I think that's skunk cabbage in the foreground but that's not really a flower.)
Eventually we broke out above treeline where there were views all around: toward New Mexico to the south, toward the peaks near Wolf Creek Pass to the east, and up to the Continental Divide just to our north, which is where we were going:
After five hours (five! WTF?) we reached the lake and ate some lunch. Then Britt fished a little, Rolfe filtered water, and Kristen and I started up the steep slog along game trails to the ridge above the lake that led to the peak, stopping frequently to take in the awesome views of the lake below:
(You can just see a bit of the Williams Creek Reservoir behind the ridge in the center of the picture - that's about where we started from.)
Eventually the boys joined us on the summit, and we enjoyed the spectacularly lovely weather - not a thundercloud in sight, just little wisps of white fluff, a rare treat for a late-summer hike - and the views of La Ventana and the Rio Grande Pyramid (which Britt and I failed to climb last Labor Day weekend due to pouring rain) and the Fourteeners and Trinities.
At 3:00 pm I announced it was time to head back down. I figured that it would take us less time to descend, but still, I guessed (correctly) that we would make it back around 8:00. We still had time to take rest breaks on rocky outcroppings and play on the ridges:
But even when we hit the forest it was a long way back down to our camp (which is in the larger of the two green meadows between the trees here).
It turned out that Kristen had her Garmin Forerunner with her - it's a GPS, the same model I have for running - and she turned it on to record our hike back to the vehicle, so we could figure out the distance. And it was? TEN FREAKING MILES. That's right, we hiked 20 miles round-trip - and maybe more, since the GPS lost signal a few times in the trees and might have missed some switchbacks. Now, 20 miles, a whole buttload of elevation gain, not so bad for studly Coloradans like us, you might say. Well, since I knew I'd be hiking on the weekend, I ran my long run of 17 miles on Friday morning. So by the time I got back to camp, I had some seriously tired legs. Fortunately, everybody else did too, so we drank wine and tequila, stuffed our faces with whatever food we could find, slept late, and did a HUGE THREE MILE HIKE the next day. (On a mostly-level trail along the Piedra River.) Then we went to a brewpub. \o/
17 photos without annoying commentary!
We picked up Kristen and Rolfe in our Sportsmobile and drove out past Williams Creek Reservoir, where we pulled off in an open bit of field sufficiently away from the NO CAMPING signs and sufficiently close to the Cimarrona trailhead. We set up the van, made dinner, drank a good bit of red wine and tequila, gawked at the rainbow that materialized right over our camp, and planned our hike. The trail would take us from 8400' up to a 12,400' ridge, then down to Hossick Lake at 11,900. From there we figured we could scramble up to the ridge above the lake that led to the 12,967' summit of Hossick Peak. In other words: lots of elevation gain and loss. Hard to tell distance because of switchbacks, but we guessed it might be 7 miles each way. HAHAHA were we ever wrong. (This is called foreshadowing.)
At any event, the next morning we got up with the sun, anticipating a long day, and were on the trail by 7:30. And it's a nifty trail! It runs right through a natural rock arch and by lots and lots and lots of wildflowers, including some that were BIGGER THAN US:
(That's Britt, Kristen, and me - the photo was taken by Rolfe - being eaten by a field of mostly cow parsnip, but also various lupines and larkspur, and I think that's skunk cabbage in the foreground but that's not really a flower.)
Eventually we broke out above treeline where there were views all around: toward New Mexico to the south, toward the peaks near Wolf Creek Pass to the east, and up to the Continental Divide just to our north, which is where we were going:
After five hours (five! WTF?) we reached the lake and ate some lunch. Then Britt fished a little, Rolfe filtered water, and Kristen and I started up the steep slog along game trails to the ridge above the lake that led to the peak, stopping frequently to take in the awesome views of the lake below:
(You can just see a bit of the Williams Creek Reservoir behind the ridge in the center of the picture - that's about where we started from.)
Eventually the boys joined us on the summit, and we enjoyed the spectacularly lovely weather - not a thundercloud in sight, just little wisps of white fluff, a rare treat for a late-summer hike - and the views of La Ventana and the Rio Grande Pyramid (which Britt and I failed to climb last Labor Day weekend due to pouring rain) and the Fourteeners and Trinities.
At 3:00 pm I announced it was time to head back down. I figured that it would take us less time to descend, but still, I guessed (correctly) that we would make it back around 8:00. We still had time to take rest breaks on rocky outcroppings and play on the ridges:
But even when we hit the forest it was a long way back down to our camp (which is in the larger of the two green meadows between the trees here).
It turned out that Kristen had her Garmin Forerunner with her - it's a GPS, the same model I have for running - and she turned it on to record our hike back to the vehicle, so we could figure out the distance. And it was? TEN FREAKING MILES. That's right, we hiked 20 miles round-trip - and maybe more, since the GPS lost signal a few times in the trees and might have missed some switchbacks. Now, 20 miles, a whole buttload of elevation gain, not so bad for studly Coloradans like us, you might say. Well, since I knew I'd be hiking on the weekend, I ran my long run of 17 miles on Friday morning. So by the time I got back to camp, I had some seriously tired legs. Fortunately, everybody else did too, so we drank wine and tequila, stuffed our faces with whatever food we could find, slept late, and did a HUGE THREE MILE HIKE the next day. (On a mostly-level trail along the Piedra River.) Then we went to a brewpub. \o/
17 photos without annoying commentary!
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