Our weather continues to be mostly rainy and cool (low 70s
during the day and mid 50s overnight), but we have managed a few short road
trips in the Jeep including a ride over to Lake City on Monday (7/9). The scenery was pretty spectacular with great
views of several “fourteeners” in this part of the San Juan Mountains. The road to Lake City traverses a couple of
passes, one of which is Slumgullion Pass.
It is named after an 850-year old earthflow that dammed up the Lake Fork
of the Gunnison River to create Lake San Cristobal, the second largest natural
lake in Colorado. This slump is still
active, moving at the rate of about 20-30 feet per year.
Lake San Cristobal, Colo's 2nd largest natural lake
Lake City is smaller than Creede, although if the two were
combined they still wouldn’t make too much of a town. We spent some time traipsing through the
shops and since fred was behind in the tourista junk purchasing category, he
found a lovely hat (picture an old Indiana Jones) to keep the sun off of his
recently sensitive head. We took the
time to visit the site of the Alferd Packer Massacre, which is the location of
the cannibalization of five people in 1874 by Packer. The quote on the memorial says, “You man
eating son of a…. There was seven
Democrats in Hinsdale County and you ate five of them.”
Alferd Packer Massacre Site
If you have been paying attention to this blog, you know
that this region has received over the past couple of decades a transplantation
of moose. You also know that we have
been searching for same. A fellow in a
sporting goods store in Lake City told us about an area where moose had been
spotted over the past several days. We
couldn’t let that pass, so, after lunch, we headed off in search of the elusive
moose. Fortunately, the road we needed
to take was on our way home, so that made the side trip closer to our RV resort
as well as pleasant. We followed a
willow-infested drainage (moose’s favorite habitat) for 7 or 8 miles before
deciding to return to US 149 the same way we had come. About half way back to the highway, we
encountered a couple of pickup trucks parked on the road and people (men, women,
and children) milling around. We thought
there might be some problem, or, perhaps some kind of wildlife. Since they were Texans too (We did tell you
that most of Texas is in this part Colorado this summer, didn’t we?), we stopped
to see what was going on. Lo and behold,
out in the middle of a small pond stood a bull moose. He was feeding on the willows and other brush
just like he should have been and was also ignoring all of the commotion going
on out on the road not 40 yards away.
Well, that made our day, so we stopped off at Freemon’s General Store
for some ice cream…no waiting.
It’s been too wet to get in much hiking, but Tuesday looked
promising, so we took off for our first hike here. The people (National Forest Service) who
compile the hiking trails don’t’ seem too interested in hikes that go for less
than about 10 miles or more. Since we
are still acclimating to the altitude and Susan is still in recovery mode, we
prefer hikes of 5-6 miles. We decided to
set off on one of the longer trails, but just go until we felt like turning
around. In that vein, we took off on a
4-wheel drive road that by-passed the Equity Mine, which has reopened and no
longer lets folks through their property.
After a couple of miles of fairly rugged road, we came upon our
trailhead to San Luis Pass. We parked at
about 10,500 ft. and planned to go up to about 12,500 ft. As you can see it was a fairly vertical climb,
since the distance was going to be only about 2.5 to 3 miles each way.
The trail was fairly well defined. The weather was clear, but cold and windy
since most of our ascent was above timberline.
After an hour or so, we reached a small saddle where several trails
crossed. Our trail, the West Willow
Creek on the Rio Grande River drainage side of the divide, the Cascade Creek
trail on the Gunnison River drainage side of the divide, plus the combination
Colorado Trail and the Continental Divide Trail running east and west. Our destination lay some 1,000 ft. higher to
the east from this saddle. After Morning
Tea, we set off to the pass. The trail
was severely eroded, but clearly marked.
On top we had spectacular views of San Luis Peak, 14,014 ft. and
numerous other slightly shorter peaks, but eye-popping views in every direction.
Entrance to Creede Mining District
Where the Trails Cross
On Top of San Luis Pass
As we were exploring the pass, we heard some yelling and noticed
a couple of men hiking up from the other side of the pass. We waved to them and one of them kept yelling
something. Since we wanted to stop for
lunch anyway, we sat down and waited for them to arrive. The first one was a boy of about 17 who asked
if we were headed for Creede. We said,
“eventually.” And he went on to tell us
that it was his dad who was lagging several hundred yards behind him and that
the dad was injured and needed a ride to Creede. Without making a commitment, we invited him
to sit with us while we had lunch. Since
it was past one o’clock, they had already eaten.
We waited for dad to arrive and when he got there he asked
if we were going to Creede and could they get a ride with us. After seeing that they were pretty harmless,
we decided to take them to town. It
turns our they’re from Lubbock, Texas, and this was a father-son outing and dad
had simply overestimated his ability…we told him not to feel too bad as all of
us do that at one time or another, especially in the mountains. They had made lots of rooky mistakes such as
not having the right kind of footgear and not acclimating to the altitude
before setting out on what was to be a 10-day hike from just west of Saguache
to Durango on the Colorado Trail—they lasted just about two days. Additionally, Clay, the dad, was having
fairly severe joint problems in his knees and hips and he was eating Advil like
it was popcorn. Unfortunately for them,
they had to hike back down to where our Jeep was parked in order to collect
their ride to town. A few times we
thought we would be carrying them.
On the way back to Creede, we passed through the old silver
mining district which we had visited earlier and we made them get out of the
Jeep at one time to see the ruins of the old Commodore Mine—it’s a pretty
amazing site and they were impressed, but we just about couldn’t get them in
the vehicle they were so stoved up.They had used a woman from Creede who shuttles hikers on the Colorado Trail to take them from where their car was parked in Durango to Saguache, where they got on the trail. Once in Creede, they called her and she arranged lodging for them at a motel even though there was “no vacancy” posted at the office. After collecting their room key, they asked for two favors. Clay asked if we could back up to the door of their room because, “I can’t carry that backpack another foot.” Donna, the shuttle service gal, had shown up to make sure they got a room, etc. She had her 4-year old granddaughter with her who said, with a big smile on her face, as we were heading off to the boy’s room, “Maybe next time you should try a shorter, easier trail!” From the mouths of babes! They offered to buy us dinner as the second favor and we declined, telling them to pay it forward; the next time they encountered someone in need to help them out. We didn’t give them a ride with the idea of collecting a reward of some kind, besides both of them would have fallen asleep at the dinner table long before dessert. They were to get a ride to Durango today from the gal that does the shuttles, we hope they have a safe journey.
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