Monday 06 August 2018
An uneventful hike out followed by lunch at the Dam Brewery in Silverthone.
In The Shadow of Longs Peak
Williams' Fork
05 August 2018
It started to rain overnight and still raining this morning at 7am. We decided to stay put until 8 am and assess. Still raining. 8:15, still raining. 8:30, still raining.
8:45 rolls around and we are getting stiff enough to entertain getting up despite the rain. I open the fly and blue sky is in the distance so we may be in luck. Whenever we backpack, the 2nd days tends to be a ‘day-hike day’ and spending it in the tent does not have much appeal…should we pack up and go for a hike or pack up and hike out?
By the time we get up and have breakfast, there is enough blue sky to convince us to stay and hike. We pack up and are underway, up the trail.
There is a new tree obstacle to negotiate. On Saturday when we got here, Gary hiked uphill a ways. He wasn’t gone 5 minutes when I heard this huge crashing sound and wondered if he was ok. Turns out, a tree had fallen across the trail! I was sure glad to see him after that. This is the 2nd time I have been in the vicinity of a falling tree, the first time was at Forlorn Lakes, near Trout Lake in Washington with Kari.
Anyway, back to our hike. We round the tree and continue up the trail which stays high above the creek, winding thru small meadows, aspen groves and pine forests. There is lots of beetle kill here and lots of fallen trees to negotiate.
For the first hour or so, the trail stays on the north side of the creek. Then we drop down, cross a small creek, then hike back up what appears to be a divide between the two. The divide is actually a wall holding back a marshy pond. We are on the north side of the main creek but appear to have wondered into another drainage and hike down into a large open meadow. This would be a cool place to camp but would require another 2 hours of humping the packs up increasingly steep trails.
We have lunch. Noticing the sky overhead, it turns into a really quick lunch and head back. There is some rain, enough for a rain jacket; and thunder overhead but no visible lightening unlike last year when I hiked back in lightening.
It takes about 90 minutes to hike back. The storm passed pretty quickly!
Once back, it was nice to sit in camp and enjoy.
Williams' Fork
04 August 2018 - 06 August 2018
Again this year, we are backpacking along the Williams Creek.
We did this outing last year, about mid August. This year, the creek is lower and it’s definitely buggier.
Our chosen campsite, same as last year is about 3 miles in and took about 3 hours: 11:30 – 2:30. The last hour was hard but not too hard and I perservere. The last bit, after the last crossing took nearly an hour, much longer than I remember. But we got there and setup the tent in the same spot, on the high side of an open meadow, just short of a stand of aspens.
We rest a bit but then feel a few drops of rain, then hurried and setup the tent. But it is just a few drops and are back outside in no time. We rest some and after a bit I decide to go and get water, heading toward the same stream as last year. First there is a dry stream (which I had forgotten about) and think we will need to scramble down to the main creek, but then in a few more steps is the creek of last summer. It does not take long to fill the four bottles and dromedary and head back to camp. Rest a bit more then decide I really need to write, so here I am!
While filling the bottles I was again thinking of words to describe the sound of water: I decide on “gurgling”…not loud enough to be ‘crashing’ nor noisy enough to be ‘babbling’….and not enough different sounds to be a ‘cacophony’.