Trekking Colorado - Lost Creek Wilderness.

Sunday evening I set out alone from the car rental place. I got kind of lucky, the lady gave me a free upgrade from the econo Hyundai to the compact, and with the Internet special it ended up being $175 for 8 days including taxes. It was over a 2 hour drive south from Denver, through Colorado Springs, and up to Lost Creek. I parked at the Spruce Grove Campground parking lot, the one beside the road for hikers is free. I packed my gear in the parking lot and started heading out for my favorite campsite at about 6:00. Kid and I were here in May 2 years before so I knew some of the layout of the place.

The 4 mile hike back to the junction of McCurdy Trail and Hankins Pass Trail was longer than I expected, due partly to the fact that I got off on a side trail. It also went up quite a bit going around Lizard Rock which would have been called a mountain itself in Alabama but is merely a rock in Colorado. Lost creek is an amazing place, it is not nearly as high as Never Summer or the Gore Range, my top elevation for the entire trip was just under 11,000 feet, we spent most of the time above that in Never Summer. This means that you never really get above tree line, and makes for a very different type of wilderness, lots of aspen groves, pines, grass, and large creeks. What makes Lost Creek really distinct though is that scattered all around you are huge hunks of pink granite. Spires, domes, arches, walls, everywhere you look there is granite.

My first campsite is Lost Creek at a glance. Your tent is pitched under a huge 40' high granite rock that is propped up at a 70 degree angle against another huge granite boulder. Here you are protected from the rain and much of the wind. This was a good thing because I was watching a thunderstorm move in as I hurried the last mile to the campsite. I got set up and the bear bag hung just before the rain started. There were people camped at the stream a few hundred yards down the trail, I was thankful they didn't take my site. After the rain moved in, I headed for bed and listened to the wind and rain whipping around for a good part of the night. What a storm. The next morning I had breakfast on my private cliff just a couple hundred feet up from the rock. The sun was rising over the mountains, and I could hear sounds of the ranch in the distance. A beautiful spot.

After breaking camp I hit the trail early, heading back down to Hankins Pass trail. The school group down by the stream was just getting up as I was leaving, their leader was very friendly. Then it was a few miles and 1500 feet or so up the mountain to Hankins Pass. The trail up was surprisingly easy, Hankins Pass is nothing too dramatic, low aspens and a few camping sites. There are some cliffs that could be explored given time. I tried to call my wife from the pass, but could get no signal. I then headed down the other side into the heart of the wilderness. The trail down is very interesting as there are different ecological areas along the way, some very dry and grassy, others damp bordering on bog. CO had a very dry summer and few of the streams were flowing on the way down. I stopped at least once on the way down for a while to read a book I'd brought on a sunny rock.

There is a trailhead, Goose Creek Trailhead, accessible by a long forest road on this side of the mountain. The trail continues north from here following Goose Creek for a ways, there are lots of camping spots down near the creek in the old conifers, the creek is large and was running fast even during this drought season. You cross a bridge and shortly afterwards head up to somewhat higher ground. From here the trail goes up and down for miles till it gets to a small side trail to a site of some old historic buildings that were built a long time ago when they were building a reservoir in part of his valley. Thankfully the rocks are not covered with water now. There is lots of camping down by the old houses.

My knee was doing pretty well up to this point, so I decided to push 3 more miles or so past this site, especially considering that there were a bunch of people there and it was still fairly early in the afternoon. Wrong choice. I started having some more serious pain these last few miles, but had to push on till I could find a running stream to camp by. It is very frustrating being able to go on and being stopped by the knee pain. I did stop a mile or so before camp for dinner. I've been trying to cook and clean up an hour or so before camp, kind of half stealth camping, it is a nice way to break up the day a little bit. Finally I made it to Refrigerator Gulch where I was staying the night. The campsite was a large grassy area a little ways from the creek. Not beautiful, but comfortable enough. I spent much of the evening finishing off the book I brought and watching the sun set in the valley.

There was a lot of condensation in the tent that night, so I spent some time the next morning getting everything dried out and making breakfast and finally got on the trial latter than ussual heading up to McCurdy Park. Originally I had planned a much longer loop, but the knee trouble made me decide to do the smaller one and try to take my time, slowing down is difficult for me. The hike up to McCurdy Park was fairly difficult, more so than I expected, lots of up and down and rocky. I was also having more serious knee problems, some sharp pain that took a lot away from the scenery. However, it couldn't take everything away, this is the heart of Lost Creek and just filled with Granite.

The creek just winds though this granite temple, going under ground in huge passages and coming back up again many feet down stream. It is a rough granite, large crystals, some of it very weak that you can break off in your hand, but other places it is strong enough to climb if your fingers are tough enough. I never stopped being amazed at the formations, this is a great place.

The trail up to McCurdy is probably not quite as bad from this side as it is from the other, but it is still difficult and long. As you near the top of the mountain it becomes more level and you pass lots of potential camp sites in grassy areas near the stream which appears to be reliable. McCurdy itself is a large meadow, that may be quite wet at sometimes but of course it was a drought when I was there. A neat place surrounded by bare mountain peaks. I passed three groups of people this day, all on the way up, a couple, a guided group, and an outward bound type group. From McCurdy Park the trail to Bison Pass in the north is well marked. However, I was in pain and wanting to get off the trail at this point so I headed down. Also, a thunder storm was moving in and I wanted to get in a sheltered place out of the storm and in a valley.

From the sign at the top of McCurdy the trail heads down in a little valley, this is the point where my brother and I made it to the last time we were here, then there was 3 or 4 feet of snow on the ground and we couldn't find the trail and didn't feel like continuing to McCurdy. If we had known that it was only 1/2 a mile maybe we would have tried it although there was going to be the same amount of snow on the top. On the other end of this valley, before heading up to the junction with Lake Park Trail, I found a camp site where I took shelter for probably 2 hours waiting for this slow moving storm to pass and reading Tolstoy.

The trip down to my first night's campsite from here is about 3 miles of switch backs. Coming up these two years ago took hours, now with the lighter pack and being in better shape I could have done it almost without stopping. Much of this trail was pink from the granite, but it is especially evident here. I made it back to the campsite without a problem and sat on the cliff there for an hour or so. I considered staying there, but was feeling kind of restless and ready to get off the trail at that point. Much of it because of the knee. So, I said goodby to this site, which I've grown really attached too after spending only 3 nights there, and headed the few more miles to the car saying goodbye to Lost Creek. The car was there, but when I put my stuff in I noticed that the tags were both gone. This meant I had to head back into Denver to get a new car. Take my word for it, don't stay at the American Youth Hostel in Denver, it isn't a nice place.