In The Shadow of Longs Peak
North Boundary Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park
13 November 2011
This is a trail that I keep looking at. It has a couple of built in problems, the first being that the trailhead itself is at the McGraw Ranch, off Devil’s Gulch Road, which has very limited parking but is very popular since it’s the main access for Bridal Veil Falls. The second problem is that the North Boundary Trail is long and not part of a convenient loop.
Even so, we do want to do this hike in full someday.
As mentioned, it starts out at McGraw Ranch and pretty much stays beyond the eastern border of Rocky Mountain National Park. The trails begins in a steep climb, pretty much straight-up, definitely a butt kicker. Before too long, there is a tree across the trail and we note the rubble of several newly downed trees close by, most likely the result of the winds of the past Friday and Saturday where even in Lyons windspeeds were clocked at 9- mph. We pick our way around these and a few more, huffing and puffing our way uphill.
I don’t take any pictures today but the panorama’s are pretty cool as there is a huge wind cloud hanging over the divide and my sense is that we’ll be lost in a snow storm at any minute.
We continue up, eventually reaching a saddle and down the other side. Here, there is quite a bit of snow that we tramp thru, It’s not icy, and there are numerous switch-backs so there are bit steps here and there but in no place is it steep and icy.
After about 30 minutes we cross many snow-less areas and the snow diminishes to nothing. Before long, we are at a log creek crossing. Of course the logs are snow-covered. I tiptoe across and now, again we being to ascend.
The next landmark is the junction of West Creek Falls. We by-pass the side trip to the falls and continue onward and upward, winding our way thru a ponderosa forest. We pick our way around downed trees, always going up.
At some point, there is yet another tree across the trail and the way beyond is not clear but we figure it out and again are on our way.
In the meantime, the sky is darker and grayer – being the conservative type, I am keeping my eye on this.
We top out on yet another divide and start downward.
At this point, it is approaching 2 PM. We decide to have lunch and stop in a place that is open above Fox Creek. We snack and head back, retracing our steps.
At the junction to West Falls, we decide to take the detour to the falls and figure it’s about ½ mi. It turns out to be more like a mile. We are past our 3:30 turn-around time but press on to the falls.
I take some pictures. I’ve forgotten how cool these falls are, dumping into a big pool.
The falls are in the park. This would be a nice backpacking destination though we would probably camp outside the park boundary and hike up here to swim.
We head back to the main trail. It takes about 45 minutes to hike back up the hill, another 30 to reach the trailhead and car…we did not even have to turn on the headlamps.