13-17 August 2005
Hike from Bear Lake to North Inlet and Back
Celia, Mark, and I
took a 5-day
trip over the Continental Divide and back this year. It was
great; view the movie of pics.
We
started and ended at Bear Lake, going up over the Continental Divide
(CD) at
Flattop Mountain. We had
originally planned a more
aggressive trip around the North Inlet/Tonahutu loop of Rocky Mountain National Park
(pdf
at http://www.nps.gov/romo/visit/park/camp/info.html),
but decided on the trip we took instead after getting winded on a trip
to Mt.
Morgan during the stay at Squam
Lake a month earlier. From
that hike of ~6 miles without packs, we were convinced that going 5-8
miles/day for 5 days with packs would not be pleasant. Instead,
we decided to go over the CD and part way to Grand Lake. We took
a couple side trips without our packs, resulting in a pleasant
outing.
Our
hike, broken down by days and
nights, is shown in the figure. The
first and last days were grueling. Trip highlights include
two
Continental Divide crossings, 22 miles with packs, 16 without, great
lunches, nights under the stars, 60-mph winds, moose and deer
encounters, Scrabble, and good laughs.
Day 1
We had a cool hike up to Flattop Mtn in the fog, with some glorious
sights as we broke into the sunlight near the top.
Following the 2+ miles across the glaciated mountaintop, we descended
1,400 feet to the 81
July campsite, just below timberline. We chose
the only remaining individual campsite, finding out later that the
other two were occupied not by hikers but by rangers working on the
trail that we had just crossed. (We passed them on the trail
arriving on Monday morning---2 days later.) The campsite was
nice, but it started to rain just after our early dinner. We
retreated to the tent. The rain was fairly hard until 8pm, but
the night was clear when I had a potty break at midnight. We had
numerous deer grazing near the campsite.
Day 2
The morning broke cold and sunny. Since we had a short hike to
Foot Bridge, we decided to dry everything out thoroughly before
hiking. More deer visited us, and the sun quickly warmed up the
day. We left at 11:30 to hike the 3.2 miles down to the next
site, arriving at 1:10. The camp looked neat. I was bushed
and decided to stay at the site while Celia and Mark explored
Ptarmingen Creek, which has no trail but had a cascade and Bench Lake
~0.5 miles up the creek. They liked the hike; I liked the rest
but used the time to set up some log benches. We had a dinner of
couscous flavored by Knorr spring vegetable soup. Celia's Travel
Scrabble provided a good relaxation. I decided to sleep outside
as the skies cleared. We had a very limited view, and the moon
was up, but later in the night, after the moon set, I saw starry skies
and 3 meteors!
Day 3
Keeping our camp at 75
Foot Bridge
, we hiked to
our original Night-2
destination, 70
Twinberry, and enjoyed a lunch at Cascade Falls. The
72
Big Pool and 71
Cascade Falls campsites looked nice, and both had good
open views to at least half of the sky. Our lunch was the
standard: apple, avocado, summer sausage, and cheese on bread.
Delightful! On our return, Celia sketched, Mark looked at the
map,
and I made a few more camp improvements---all standard
activities.
We had Annie's mac and cheese a second time for dinner. We all
slept outside; our tents empty.
Day 4
We hiked back up a short distance to 79
North Inlet Falls
campsite but disn't
make camp, hoping to be able to continue on up to July so that
our final day of hiking would be less than the advertised 10.1 miles
and 2,700-feet rise and fall. We even posted a sign to determine
if we could count the groups heading for July. Then we went up to
Lake Nakoni and Lake Nanita at 11,000 feet. Both were
gorgeous. During our lunch a cold front came through, chilling us
enough to warrant putting on extra layers. We also met a lone
hiker who was walking along the Continental Divide Trail across all of
Colorado, a distance of 740 miles. He had done the same thing 30
years earlier! When we checked our note, no hikers had indicated
July as a destination, but we did bump into a ranger (and his
girlfriend) just near our campsite. He said he would check via
radio whether July was available. Curiously, we found that there
was a clandestine ranger site just near our campsite, complete with
tent, eating area, and communications. With his confirming that
no July site was open, we set up camp (again with a couple site
improvements), but we didn't put up the tents, hoping to sleep under
the stars and avoid the takedown time in the morning to get a good
early start. The skies were iffy, but no rain appeared, and the
skies cleared near dusk. We mounted a large rocky area and laid
out our sleeping bags. The moon was up and obscured the stars
until it set about 3:30am. Then the sky darkened---great viewing
for awhile before morning twilight.
Day 5
Mark rousted us at 5:45am. With all the granola eaten, Celia
proposed a breakfast of chocolate couscous, which was quite warm and
tasty. We got going at 6:50, but Celia had to visit the biffy at
North Inlet Junction on the main trail. While we were awaiting
her return, we saw a mother moose and her baby ~30 feet
away! They appeared curious of us and moseyed closer,
foraging on the way. When Celia returned, they were literally
within 10 feet of us. After a few minutes they moseyed farther
away, and we set off toward July. The first set of switchbacks
were a rise of 900 feet. I was dying, so Celia (with a lighter
pack due to less food) took my tent. We reached July after
1:30. The wind was increasing, so Celia and I donned our mittens
and wool hats. We started up the second switchbacks, a rise of
1,400 feet. Mark took on the tent burden and was in macho mode,
having set a pace far in excess of my capabilities. We passed the
maintenance crew. The wind was increasing, luckily blowing in our
direction of travel. And Mark was fading, not having taken on
some food. I took the tent back because I was doing better.
We kept up an okay pace to the top of the switchbacks and across the CD
to Flattop.
However,
nere the top, I completely stopped and had
to get some food. A tropical fruit Power Gel revived me.
The wind had been blowing us almost off our feet ever since July.
At the top and down toward Bear Lake, it continued to blow until we
were almost down to treeline. Then the hail started, lasting
until we reached Bear Lake at just under 6 hours after leaving North
Inlet Falls campsite, so we had far exceeded our expectations of
making the final trek in under 7 hours.
Other tidbits
Details of our plans, actual distances, menus, and pack lists are in a
spreadsheet.
Altogether this year's effort was another fine hike documented by Celia and Mark. I
think 5
days is a good length; I wouldn't go for much longer unless we had some
long-distance goal in mind.