Cony Lake, Attempt #3

Posted on August 12, 2015 by dhill

Saturday, August 8

Cony Lake sits lies at the upper end of the Cony Creek drainage, south of Mount Copeland at the southern edge of the Park. Starting at the Finch Lake trailhead, it’s a 9.2 mile hike climbing over 3,000 feet. If you start at the Allenspark trailhead instead, you save a mile each way and five hundred feet of elevation.

Two years ago I made it as far as Pear Lake. I took a break there to eat some fruit. After the break I hiked up the bench to the south where I came across a pond. Here I realized I’d abandoned the camera at Pear Lake, so I had to turn around. It was just as well – clouds rolled in from the east, just feet above the lake. Last year I got as far as Upper Hutcheson Lake. I struggled through a mass of willow only to see snow covered slopes on the other side of the lake. Between my lack of spikes in mid-July and losing time in the willow, it was an easy decision to stop there.

Third time’s a charm, right? Saving eleven percent of the distance and fifteen percent of the climb will make it easier. I’m going nearly a month later in the season this time, and I have a better idea of the lay of the land. I felt good about my prospects.

We’ve been having hot, clear weather lately but Saturday’s weather forecast degraded every day all week. It would be cool with a good chance for rain. I hit the road at 5:30, planning to be on the trail by 7:00. Low clouds obscured all the peaks. Meeker, Longs, and Pagoda were mostly clear, but everything to the south was in a layer of clouds with a ceiling not far above treeline. Above that, blue skies to the west and a layer of high clouds to the east.

This was my first visit to the Allenspark trailhead. I couldn’t see the parking lot on the satellite images, so I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to park. It’s a bit over a mile up a dirt road and if I couldn’t park there I’d have to use the Finch Lake trailhead. There’s room for a dozen cars in the trees, but the entrance has a giant rut. I pondered for a second and gave it a try. It was sketchy, but I made it in without scraping bottom.

I was on schedule: on the trail promptly at seven. Another solo hiker arrived in the parking lot after me; he passed me on the trail before I’d done a mile. I asked him where he was headed. He said “Pear for sure, maybe a bit farther.” I told him I was headed to Cony. He said perhaps we’d see each other again, but he was moving at a much quicker pace than I was managing.

From the trailhead to the Finch Lake trail junction just below the Ouzel burn scar is 1.8 miles. It’s been nearly forty years since the fire. It’s no longer an area of dead sentinels and wildflowers. The new trees are getting bigger, but it’s not forest yet so the spectacular view is relatively unobscured.

There were very few other hikers. In the six miles to Pear Lake, I ran into eight or ten folks hiking out and a few more who were still at the Pear Creek campsite. I did catch up to the other hiker, Jason, between Finch and Pear. He put the afterburners on after his break and he was quickly out of sight.

A cacophony of wildflowers

Foster says, at Pear Lake “follow the unimproved but recognizable trail”. The first time I tried Cony, I went on the other side of the lake. The second, I followed the trail along the shore until it faded out, then headed up. I was thinking this was the unimproved but recognizable trail. I found out on the way back that I wasn’t even close. Anyway, I’d been here before so it was no trouble to find Lower Hutcheson Lake.

According to Foster’s map, the route is to cross Cony Creek just above the lower lake, then recross at the outlet of the middle lake. The crossing at the lower lake was easy – the stream has split into two narrower channels. Up slope a ways I found myself blocked by krummholz and willow. After squeezing through one gap I noticed my water bottle was missing. It must have fallen out right here.

But no. A thorough search yielded nothing. Clearly, I lost it earlier. I made my way back down, not exactly sure how I’d come up. I think I was backtracking correctly, but did I go on this side of this clump of bushes, or that side? Shortly before I was back to where I crossed the second portion of the creek I saw Jason on the opposite hillside. I hollered at him to hold up.

I made my way over to him, told him I’d lost my water. I’d have to turn back with no water. He kindly gave me a liter of water. He was going to keep going for a while so I got out my map for us to consult. I have it marked with Foster’s route. I told him I’d look for my water bottle a little while longer before giving up. I found it almost immediately, sitting on the bank of the creek.

Following Foster’s route we found ourselves back where was when I realized I’d lost my water. It didn’t take long for us to decide to switch back to the north side of the creek. A couple minutes after crossing we found a nice trail. This dumped us on to a series of rock slabs. We were able to follow a few cairns, but that was it. From here, it’s a good idea to climb upslope a bit to avoid the krummholz and willow. Above the middle lake, Jason called it quits. He’d told his wive he’d be back at a specific time, and this was all the farther he could go.

I had no fun in the willow along the north shore of Upper Hutcheson last year, so I decided I’d stay higher up on the slope and avoid it. Foster’s route was on the south shore, but her route below was wrong and I no longer trusted it. So off I went, climbing slowly but steadily up the slope of Mount Copeland as I worked my way west. It didn’t take long to realize I still had quite a way to climb to avoid the krummholz. I paused to assessed the situation.

The north shore is a longer route than the south shore, as I’d need to go south to get to Cony. There was much less willow on the south; it looked like I could go right along the water and avoid it. If I went straight downslope where I was, it was a pretty easy route. The willow weren’t too thick there.

On the south shore, at this time of year with the water low, it looked like I could hop across the rocks right at the waters edge and avoid the bushes. It almost worked – I made it quite a distance but right at the end the rocks were too far apart, and the water had gone from a few inches deep to well over boot height. So, another short backtrack.

I finally find myself at the south western end of Upper Hutcheson Lake, just a few tenths of a mile away, at the top of a four hundred feet climb. I find myself at the base of a vast sea of willow. I either have to backtrack to go over the outcropping on my left or wade through the willow. It’s 11:30. I clearly won’t make Cony by noon. The sky is blue to the west, but some of the clouds to the east might drop some rain. I decide to abort the assault on Cony Lake and have my picnic here.

I haven’t replaced the tripod yet, but I did remember to bring the shutter timer this time. I found a nice rock to use as a base and set the camera. I faced a bit of a dilemma. To the west, small clouds were coming over the divide then boiling away but the foreground not interesting. To the east the clouds were higher and slower moving and the lake is in the foreground, Too bad I only had the one camera.

It was cool and windy. I was in sunlight for the most part but had little shelter from the wind. I sat in the lee of a small boulder and ate while the camera clicked away. After a short while I realized I didn’t hear the camera shutter. Was I too far, was the wind blowing the sound away from me? No, the camera had stopped with “Err 99”. I’ve had this happen occasionally. Just turn it off and back on and it’s cleared. It ran only for a few more minutes before getting the error again.

After restarting it the second time, I started to have second thoughts as to what I should be shooting. I let it run a while longer before switching it to the west. Then, of course, those clouds seemed to be going away. Have I made a mistake? Ah, well. You never know what you’re going to get.

Taking an hour break gives you a lot of time to take in the surroundings. It was windy and the nearby willows not so much rustled as hissed, at times almost loud enough to drown out the sound of falling water. I wasn’t hearing the inlet in the willows but a waterfall on the canyon wall two hundred feet up. There was quite a bit of water coming down but the talus twenty feet below the bottom of the falls was dry. From the looks of it, it’s always dry, even in max flow.

The windbreaker was beginning to feel inadequate after an hour of lounging. It was time to pack up and get moving again. My next navigational problem was getting back to the other side of the creek. I wanted to avoid the willow as much as possible. Perhaps Foster’s route here on the south side was correct after all. Being above the landscape gives a much different perspective on things than being in the landscape, looking up.

There’s a small pond below the upper lake. With water levels so low, it’s easy to skirt the southern shore to a nice crossing to a grassy slope on the other side. Easy, peasy.

It was here that I started to reflect on the day so far. I lost my water bottle and had to backtrack to retrieve it. I made a few navigational errors and I didn’t achieve my objective. Instead, I sat at the edge of a beautiful alpine lake for an hour and watched the world go by. Okay, the camera futzed out a couple of times. But all in all, there’s nothing to complain about. It’s just another beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Above Pear Lake I managed to stumble upon the trail Foster mentions. It’s quite well defined here and going is easy. I soon see Pear Lake below me – I’m well above the shore. And yet the trail refuses to descend. How can this trail not go down to the lake? I cut cross-country. About halfway from the trail to the shore I come across a nice outcropping of rocks with a view and decide it’s time to take a break.

It’s peach season. Lots of people think of Georgia when they think of peaches, but I think the best peaches are grown on the western slope of Colorado. I have one of these Palisades peaches with me. This particular example is top rate: perfectly ripe and perfectly juicy; sweet and full of flavor. I always say food tastes better at alpine lakes, but this peach would be one of the finest peaches ever, even in my kitchen.

So I’m luxuriating in this wonderful peach, enjoying the now clear and brilliant blue skies above. What could be better than this? As I’m eating the peach, I spot an eagle soaring over the lake, fishing. She circled a few times then dove. The water erupted in a big splash and momentarily she arose, the silver of a fish clearly evident in her claws. Then she made a couple of wide circles above the lake, as if to show off her kill, before heading to the trees on the other side.

Bear left for Hutcheson

Break over, I got back on the move. There’s a hitching post where the trail arrives at the lake. It’s here that you get the trail to Hutcheson Lakes. This is the trail I was just on. I walked right by it at least twice without figuring it out.

My next stop was the stream crossing at the Pear Creek campsite. I needed to replenish the water supply. Not ten steps on the other side of the creek I stumbled over a rock on the trail. I do this countless times each hike; it’s never a big deal, I never lose my balance. This time I “went over the handlebars” as Michael might say. My left foot slipped, I went down on my left knee and put my hands out to stop my fall. My left hand slipped as well and I ended up on my elbow. This resulted in an ugly abrasion on my left forearm.

It stung, and it was bloody. At least the stream was right there. I had it washed off in no time and used one of my paper towels to stanch the flow. I basically lost the skin along the bony part of the forearm – five or six inches long and a quarter inch wide. I took a couple of ibuprofen and was back under locomotion ten minutes later.

Most of the day I’d been shrugging off all the minor mishaps – I was having a great time in spite of losing my water bottle, the camera acting flaky, minor navigational issues. I’m in a beautiful place and it’s hard not to enjoy it. But the gods wanted to test my limits and had that rock grab my toe.

Chief’s Head and Pagoda. From left to right, see the chief’s forehead, nose, and chin. Pagoda would be his pointy bra.

I was back to the car by 5:20. Turns out there are two entrances to the parking lot; the southern one lacks obstacles and I was out without any additional drama. Even though it was nice and sunny, it wasn’t hot so I headed down the road topless. Traffic wasn’t bad and it was a pleasant drive home.

Lake Nanita

Posted on July 20, 2015 by dhill

Friday, July 17

This hike has been on my list for three years. I decided this spring that I would finally go there. I’ve been psyching myself up for this one for about two weeks. This would be the longest hike I’ve ever attempted – 11.1 miles each way according to Foster. I’m struggling to come up with the right words to describe my feelings. I wasn’t exactly anxious (as in filled with anxiety). Intimidated isn’t the right word either.

I hiked a portion of the North Inlet trail a few years ago when I visited Bench Lake. You go nearly seven miles up that trail to Ptarmigan Creek before heading straight up the slope. Those first seven miles are fairly mellow – you gain only about a thousand feet of elevation. The last few miles to Lakes Nokoni and Nanita are steeper, but the net climb for the eleven miles is only about 2400′.

So even though it’s quite a long hike I expected to be able to make good time. My plan was to arrive at the trailhead by seven and I guessed I could make it to Nanita in five hours. Allow an hour of lounging at the lakes and I should be back to the car by six. The drive to the trailhead is a bit over two hours (I-70 and Berthoud Pass) and the trip home another two and a half hours (over Trail Ridge Road) and it would be a very full day – leave the house before five and return at eight thirty. That was the plan, anyway.

I was out the door at 4:30. Traffic was very light and I made good time, jetting over Berthoud Pass. The sun was beginning to light the sky; the mountains to the north were still in silhouette but the wispy banners of clouds above them were lit pink and periwinkle. It was still fairly chilly and I had the heater on. The Fraser valley was blanketed with a layer of ground fog.

I made the trailhead by 6:30 and was on the trail at 6:40. It was cool enough I could have worn a light jacket but I expected to work into a lather fairly quickly. The first mile or so is more a dirt road than a trail – this provides access to a private cabin that’s on Park land. I started working the math in my head. If I manage the first three miles in an hour (a very quick pace for hiking), I would only need to average two miles an hour for the rest of the hike to maintain my schedule. I couldn’t help but recall than I failed to maintain that rate on my last three hikes.

I passed Cascade Falls in exactly an hour, and was at Big Pool in ninety minutes. I was thinking that Big Pool was five miles in, but that couldn’t be right. That would mean I was averaging well over three miles per hour. (Big Pool is 4.8 miles from the trailhead.) After two and a quarter hours I crossed Ptarmigan Creek. I was making very good time. The trail was every bit as easy as I remembered it.

My hike to Bench Lake was not the most pleasant hike. All was going well until I began my descent from the lake. I have difficulty with steep descents and this one was no exception. At my moment of greatest unease, one of my water bottles came out of its pocket and tumbled out of sight, lost. Of course it was the full bottle and not the half full one. So I had to manage my water on a warm day. Then, back on the trail, my ankle started to hurt. I thought perhaps I had an insect or spider bite. It was swollen and red, but I hadn’t twisted it. So the hike out was warm, thirsty, and somewhat painful.

But that was then.

Passing Ptarmigan Creek I was finally on new trail. From here to the Lake Nanita trail spur the trail remains fairly flat. It’s about a mile from Ptarmigan Creek to the junction. From there the trail descends a bit to cross the stream at North Inlet Falls. It is here that the (modest) climb to the lakes begins.

After about another mile the trail begins a series of widely spaced switchbacks. The slope is quite steep but the trail makes the ascent fairly painless. Up to this point, the hike has been through forest or alongside meadows and featured no views to speak of. About three quarters of a mile before Lake Nokoni, the trail traverses the top of this steep slope and the trees have thinned out considerably, opening the rich vistas of the Continental Divide to the east. Below lies the upper North Inlet valley, one of the more remote areas of the park.

It’s easy to concentrate on the majestic views to the east and overlook the profusion of wildflowers on both sides of the trail.

Ptarmigan Mountain pops into view at Nokoni Lake. The trail runs alongside a large slab of rock ten or fifteen feet high. On the other side of this rock lies Nokoni. According to the map, I figured it would be a bit farther away, but it’s right there. The lake is bigger than I expected; it’s a substantial body of water.

Lake Nanita is another 1.1 miles along. The trail crosses a saddle between Ptarmigan Mountain and point 11218. It zig-zags up the slope, mostly clear of trees, with a nice view of Nokoni below. Here I noticed it was a bit breezy. It is exposed here, and the wind gets an unobstructed run across the lake. The tree tops were swaying six or eight feet.

This is the last two hundred feet of climbing, reaching perhaps 11,050′ of elevation. Both Nanita and Nokoni are just below 10,800′. On the other side of this saddle, the trail descends alongside an open meadow and affords an unobstructed view of the western face of Ptarmigan Mountain. It is the better part of a thousand feet straight up. On the topo map you can’t make out the intervals – it’s a solid brown bar.

Unlike the other side of the saddle, where Nokoni was on full display, here you get only glimpses of Nanita. Only upon arriving at the shores of the lake do you get a good view. Foster says, “Lake Nanita is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful tarns in RMNP.” It is difficult to argue otherwise, but it must be noted that there are many lakes in the area that would easily feature on the list of “most beautiful”.

Lake Nanita, too, is a large lake. It’s bigger than Nokoni. I’m left wondering just how many lakes in the park are bigger. That would be a short list.

It took me four hours forty minutes to arrive here from the trailhead. I exceeded my expectations, and that included a ten minute break for a snack part way up the hill to Nokoni.

I plopped myself down on a rock and tucked in to my lunch. I didn’t bring the tripod, as the mount is broken, but considered making a time lapse by setting the camera on a rock. Unfortunately, the shutter timer is in the tripod’s carrying case, so that was a no go. It was a moot point anyway – the sky was absolutely cloudless. I was about 40 minutes ahead of schedule, and it’s typical that clouds don’t feature in the skies until about noon.

I sat there for an hour, enjoying my lunch and watching the world go by. A large bird (an eagle? too far away to identify) soared over the south end of the lake for a while. Fish were active within a few yards of my rock.

The sky was so clear that jets weren’t leaving contrails. A four engine jet flew over, each engine leaving a trail only for a couple of degrees of arc; the plane like the tip of a white spear. It was on a path that would take it between two of the spires of Ptarmigan Towers; it might make an interesting picture. I fumbled the lens cap when I went to take it off. I grabbed for it as it fell, missed it twice before it landed and bounced off the rock, down four feet into the lake. It was lying under four inches of water, but well out of reach. I missed the shot and lost the cap.

I did manage to find a way to clamber down and get it. It required hanging on to the branch of a bush. Had that branch broken, I’d have fallen into the water and been awarded the trifecta: cold, wet, and miserable. The retrieval was successful; a small drama.

Clouds began bubbling up at noon. I was packed up on on the trail by 12:20. After an hour of inertia, I was glad the climb up the saddle between the lakes was not so steep on this side. Once I had sight of Lake Nokoni, I knew that it was all downhill from here. Looking at the hillside above the north shore of Nokoni I could see a trail. This would be the route to Pettingell Lake on the other side of the ridge. Pettingell is the same distance from Nokoni as Nanita, and the route looks to be clear of trees so it shouldn’t be much more difficult than Nanita. It should be doable.

Back at Nokoni Lake I chatted with a group of four. They were the first people I’d seen since about 9:15. I asked if they were going to Nanita. “We were just there.” They must have been very quiet, as I never saw nor heard them, and I sat right where the trail dumps you on the shore of the lake.

I took my time over the next section of trail, where there were nice vistas to the east, taking in the view before rejoining the forest. After this it wasn’t long before I began encountering more hikers. Several folks asked me where I was staying. I was the only day-tripper out there.

I stopped just above North Inlet Falls, refilled my water bottle and ate some fruit. I stopped on the bridge to snap a photo of the falls. I never get a falls picture I like, but I’ll keep trying. At this moment it started to sprinkle. I was standing in bright sunshine but a gray cloud was immediately to the west, with blue skies beyond.

It didn’t look like it would rain hard or for long. I have a poncho, of course, but I didn’t want to mess with it for sprinkles. The cloud was small, and we were moving in opposite directions. I could manage a few drops. About a mile later it was no longer a light sprinkle, and the clouds looked distinctly bigger. Most of the oncoming hikers had donned their rain gear. At Ptarmigan Creek I put the poncho on. A minute later I was thinking it was the right choice – the rain was now mixed with graupel. Another minute later it stopped.

I took another break at Big Pool. Ate more fruit and put the poncho away. It had taken me ninety minutes to get here in the morning; even though I’d been hiking for nearly eight of the last nine hours, I felt pretty good. It was easily twenty degrees cooler in the morning, and I was fresh then, but I felt like I could match that time. I did.

I’ve never hiked so far before, but I’ve certainly done more strenuous hikes. Clearly, it’s all about the elevation gain. But I’m still a little amazed I hiked over twenty two miles in a day.

Chasm Lake

Posted on July 18, 2015 by dhill

Saturday, July 11

I just about had myself talked into trying my longest hike ever – Lake Nanita. It’s over eleven miles each way and I should be able to bag three new lakes. But that will have to wait. Last Saturday we had lunch with Bob in Loveland and I managed to leave my credit card there. The place is an hour drive away, so if I was to just run up there some evening it would be a two hour trip. Instead, Genae suggested I swing by to get my credit card after a hike. That means an east side hike. Lake Nanita is on the west side.

It was about Wednesday when I decided to visit Chasm Lake. It’s much like the last two hikes – about five miles each way and about a 2400′ climb. My only question was how early I would need to arrive at the trailhead to get a parking space. Once the parking lot fills up, people start parking along the road. But that basically means parking in a ditch, so that’s out. If I was smart, I’d have a backup plan.

I left the house at six with no backup plan. I arrived at the trailhead by a quarter to eight. There were thirty or forty cars parked along the side of the road. Not good. I could have turned around as soon as I hit the parking lot but decided to go all the way to the southern end anyway. At that end of the lot I thought I found an empty spot, but there was a sign there, “No Parking” with an arrow to the right. On the fence at the end was another no parking sign, arrows pointing both ways. On the other fence, on the right side, another no parking sign, with an arrow to the left.

That sign was maybe ten feet from the end. At the other end of the fence, a giant SUV had parallel parked. Behind him there was room for four or five more cars. Why was nobody parked there? The sign clearly only prohibits parking at the end. So I arrived late and scored a parking space anyway.

I put on my boots, strapped on the fanny pack, tripod, and camera and looked for a ranger. I asked if it was okay to park there and described the signs. It was his second shift on the job and didn’t know. He found the other ranger there who said “Fred says it’s okay to park there but Bill says it’s not.” I told him I believed the sign instead of Bill and started up the mountain.

Although this was only my second trip to Chasm Lake, I’ve been on the trail here many times. From the trailhead to somewhat above treeline, there’s not much to see. Above treeline you get a nice view of Twin Sisters and the prominent landslide from the 2013 floods. Once you can see the summit of Longs, it dominates the view to the west.

For me, the view doesn’t really get interesting until you take the trail spur to Chasm Lake. Here you crest Mills Moraine and get the first good look at the giant bowl formed by Mt. Meeker, Longs Peak, and Mount Lady Washington directly ahead. The granite walls of Mt. Meeker form giant amphitheaters two thousand feet high. Below lies the valley of the Roaring Fork – Peacock Pool and Columbine Falls. (Yes, “Roaring Fork” seems to be a common name – I hiked along a different Roaring Fork last week.)

Two landslides from the September, 2013 flooding.

In September of 2013, every stream in the area flooded. Somehow, highway 7 didn’t get washed out. It was a near thing where the road crosses Cabin Creek, at Camp St. Malo. The embankment there caused debris to pile up badly. I don’t know that the Roaring Fork presented a problem near the highway, but here above treeline there were two “small” landslides that deposited alluvial fans on the high valley floor. These landslides are narrow, but something on the order of 500′ high.

My first visit to Chasm Lake was a week later in July. The trail crossed a very steep snow slope. Because Longs has gotten so much late spring snow, I figured there was a good chance of seeing snow there again. I brought my microspikes for just such an occasion, but they were not necessary. The little patch of snow today was only two feet across.

Same view as the flooded section.

On the way up, my gaze was focused on the slow above the trail. I was a bit disappointed that there weren’t many columbines there; I recalled there being many more. On the way back I was paying more attention. The slope below the trail is where the action is. This is the largest field of columbines I’ve ever seen. I paused several times through here on the hike out just to drink in all the sights.

Above Columbine Falls the terrain flattens out before dumping you at the base of a two hundred foot scramble up to the bench holding the lake.

Given the small size of the parking lot and the number of people who attempt to summit the mountain, I’m surprised at how many people are here at the lake. There were dozens of hikers on the spur trail, many more already at the lake, and a number of climbers on the various rock faces. A group of climbers were working their way up the sheer wall to my left; I could hear them calling out to each other as they worked their way up. I should have brought the telephoto lens.

When setting up the camera for the time lapse, I saw that the piece that mounts on the base of the camera is broken. That’s why the last few videos have been jerky – even a slight breeze moves the camera even though the tripod is secure. Oh well.

On the hike out I chatted with several hikers who tried to summit. One group hiked to the boulder field last night. They got there at 9:30 in total darkness and had lost the route. While setting up camp, it began to rain and hail. They got fairly wet and had a less than comfortable night. In the morning they went to the keyhole and decided it was too icy for them to go any farther. I told them I’d only summited once but made the keyhole four times. I never attempted that hike before August.

Hiking out, there was a steady stream of people on their way up. It was far too late in the day for day trippers; they all were planning a night on the mountain. I kept wondering where everybody parks. When I drove away, the answer was clear: now cars were parked alongside the road about half the way to CO 7. Folks arriving late (after 6am?) have an extra half mile (or more) added to their hikes.

I have no plans on summiting Longs Peak again, but I may hike to the keyhole again. The views from there are fantastic. Another possibility is climbing Mount Lady Washington. It’s about a thousand feet lower than Longs and not nearly as treacherous.

Watanga Lake

Posted on July 12, 2015 by dhill

Friday, July 3

Last week when musing on the difficulties of bagging new lakes, I broke the challenges down into longer hikes, more bushwhacking, and more remote trailheads. This week I pulled Watanga Lake out of the Foster guide. It is reached from the Roaring Fork trailhead which is situated on Arapaho Bay, the southwestern extreme of Lake Granby. I would put it in the “remote trailhead” category. It’s not any farther than the other jumping off points on the west side of the park but it’s at the end of a ten mile dirt road. The road supports quite a bit of RV traffic and is quite smooth, but it is covered with stones. The speed limit is 25, but I probably never topped 15.

Watanga Lake is in the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area, about two tenths of a mile south of the RMNP boundary. There’s a self service permit kiosk just off US 34, at the end of the pavement. Day use is $5. About ten miles up the road, make a left turn towards the Roaring Fork campground. The trailhead is on the right.

The first couple hundred yards of trail are forested and flat. There’s a sign here announcing your entrance to the IPWA. Immediately the trail starts climbing steeply. It looks to me like a fire burned through here a few decades ago; many dead trees are standing, but there are aspen and some young pine with a smattering of mature pine. The trail is sunny, but the views of Lake Granby are still somewhat obscured.

The trail just keeps going up and up. When the trail bends to the northwest it looks to me like the trees have gone from dead by fire to dead by beetle. The ascent moderates a bit, but continues to climb. About a mile in we’ve climbed nine hundred feet and reach the first river crossing.

I would call this an unimproved trail. It is just a path, well traveled, but a path. No bars to

The first bridge is in the best condition…

divert flowing water, no rocks line the trail, nothing resembling a stair step. There are sawn log bridges, but no milled lumber anywhere. The Roaring Fork river is too wide here to be crossed with a log. Here is the only structure that could be called an improvement. In the middle of the river is a triangular log pier that supports two spans of logs. It’s a unique bridge in my experience. It was the first of what turned out to be nine water crossings, where each bridge was sketchier than the last, until the stream was small enough for me to leap across.

After this first crossing, the trail mellows out quite a bit. The next two miles only climb another seven hundred feet with the Roaring Fork river audible much of the time. Just before the confluence of Watanga Creek and the Roaring Fork there’s a trail junction. Watanga Lake is to the left. I passed a couple of hikers on the climb who were going to more distant lakes on the Roaring Fork trail.

Shortly after the trail junction, we make our sixth or seventh river crossing. We went from a double span to a long single span, two logs wide, to a single log, to a single broken log (still quite serviceable) and finally to a broken log replaced with a skinny limb. I arrived there at the same time a group of four hikers and a dog arrived on the other side.

I waited patiently and watched their crossing operation. They had a short length of white cord. They tied it onto a tree and the first guy kept it under tension to aid the crossing. I don’t think he stood a chance of making it without the cord. He was in full-cowboy attire: cowboy hat, blue jeans (with a circle worn in one back pocket), and cowboy boots, missing only the shirt with snaps. Using the cord, he crossed without incident, as did the next guy.

The third guy, wearing trail running shoes, lost his balance and went in the drink getting soaked nearly up to his knees. The last guy on the other side tied the cord to the dog’s harness and the second guy pulled the dog across. The dog looked terrified during the act and quite happy afterwards. Then they tied the cord to a tree on this side and tossed the free end to the last hiker, who then crossed without incident.

In the middle of this operation they asked if I wanted to use the cord, but I figured I wouldn’t do any better than the guy who soaked both his feet so I declined. I had decided to take boots and socks off and ford the stream as that’s what I’d need to do when returning.

The water was almost knee deep, moving quickly, and quite cold. The rocks were slippery but I had no problem making my way across. I did it a lot quicker than they did, and one of them had wet feet for the rest of his hike.

Before we parted, I asked, “How far to the lake? Two miles or so?” They said that was about right, but one of them also said they’d left the lake a half hour ago so I thought it was probably less. But they also said it felt like it took them three hours to get there from this point. I didn’t take that seriously.

A short distance past the ford the trail crosses the river again then begins to climb steeply. The last mile or so climbs another seven hundred feet. I generally don’t sit down before reaching my destination. I’ll often pause for a breather; take a sip of water or snap a photo, chat with other hikers. But I don’t sit down. This final climb took me off my feet. Part of the climb is on a hillside in full sunshine. After several switchbacks I sat in a little patch of shade and ate some fruit.

Somewhat refreshed, I pushed on, vanquished the final climb and arrived at Watanga Lake. The hike in took me three hours. This was a bit longer than I expected. Of course, there was the delay at the ford. But more annoying was that the trail was much steeper than I expected. Last week I said that the trail to Timber Lake climbed a bit more than the typical five mile hike. This trail is shorter but climbs five hundred feet more. I clearly didn’t pay any attention to that statistic when planning the hike.

Dogs were common hiking companions on this trail. Only myself and one couple lacked a canine. At the lake was a guy with three dogs. He fished, they ranged over a wide area. The dogs were small, smaller, and smallest.

The lake is scenic, but not dramatic. It’s small and shallow, with a large marshy area to the west. On my way out I ventured that way looking for another picture but there was no better view than where I sat and ate. Found a few nice flat rocks next to a handy snowbank to chill my beverage. It never ceases to amaze me how much better food tastes when enjoyed in a beautiful setting after three hours of hiking.

On the way down realized how fast the trail climbed. The guy at the lake complained about it, but I think he was complaining more about the sixty pound pack and herding the dogs. Hefting an extra sixty pounds, yeesh. That’s why I ‘m a day tripper. It took me three hours to get to the lake, but that includes probably twenty minutes watching those four guys cross the stream.

As I approached the ford, I was thinking how much more efficiently I crossed than they did. It took them quite a while and one went in the drink. But on my second crossing, I tossed one boot short and bounced into a puddle. Dang. It was standing upright, but it landed on its side. Maybe it didn’t get wet inside. Alas, it was pretty well soaked.

I sopped as much as I could with a paper towel, but it still felt pretty wet. I opened the tongue wide and set it down with as much sun shining in as I could. I took a short break and ate my cherries. Resigned to a wet foot for the remainder of the day I packed up and put the boots back on. For about thirty seconds my foot felt wet but after that it felt normal.

I made it back to the car shortly before four. No shade at the car, toasty, a bit dusty. Between the hot sun and the slow dusty drive to the highway I elected to keep the top on. I almost always return over Trail Ridge but figured the traffic there would be very bad so I drove back the way I came.

I stopped for a cold soda in Granby. There was a couple in a Polaris. Technically, they rode their Polaris; legally it’s a motorcycle and of course they get wet when it rains. Everybody was so busy asking them questions they didn’t notice me. It’s not often my car isn’t the center of attention.

Traffic moved pretty well, pretty much the speed limit all the way to Winter Park. I dispatched some slower cars going up the pass. People moved at a reasonable speed on the down side and before long we’re to I-70. The westbound traffic was horrendous. It only appeared to be stop-and-go in short blips, but it never moved fast, all the way to the bottom of Floyd Hill. And I’m sure it was that way all the way to the Eisenhower tunnel. Quite the contrast from what it was in the morning.

Fitbit app (GPS) says 4.51 miles, wristband recorded 5.97 miles with only 80 more paces on the way out. Foster says 4.8. Just a tad short of 25,000 paces for the round trip. Depending on how often the app queries the satellite, the GPS may read short on all the switchbacks. But I wouldn’t expect three tenths short, so I’ll assume the lower number is the most accurate.

Timber Lake

Posted on July 3, 2015 by dhill

I’ve been aching to hike to lakes I haven’t been to yet. It’s been a long time since I bagged a new lake. No, that’s wrong. On the contrary, it was as recent as October, and half my hikes last year were new. Is going to new places getting to be an obsession for me? “My name is Dave, and I’m an addict.”

Unfortunately, my hunger for bagging another lake is getting harder to sate. I’ve picked all the low hanging fruit and to get to new lakes I have to go farther afield. The remaining ones are farther away, with more bushwhacking, and longer drives to the trailheads. This year I’m planning an 18 mile hike and a 22 mile hike. But it’s too early to try either of those; there is still too much snow on the ground for me to attempt either. If I can’t have a new item from the menu, what haven’t I had for a while?

After giving the question some thought I decided on Timber Lake. I was there once before, thirty odd years ago with my brother. Just that one visit, half a lifetime ago, and I somehow didn’t take a camera. It’s the only lake I’ve visited only once and last visited more than six years ago. This lake will look about as new to me as one I haven’t been to.

Foster lists the hike to to Timber Lake at 5.0 miles and a 2,000 foot climb. The sign at the trailhead indicates 5.3 miles, and from the topo maps it appears closer to 2,100′. Either way, it’s a greater than average climb for a five mile hike.

It’s a west side hike, the last trailhead before the switchbacks on Trail Ridge Road. I figured if I hit the trail by nine I could be at the lake easily by noon, so I didn’t need to hit the road too early. I made a leisurely start, leaving the house a few minutes before seven. I took my time on the drive; top off and a jacket on, a bit on the cool side at 70mph, but not uncomfortable. It looked to be another beautiful day. As I went farther north, though, it became a bit overcast.

Being a west side hike, I figure two hours to reach the trailhead. I went the speed limit the whole way with the possible exception of Berthoud Pass. And as it’s a few more miles into the park than the other trailheads I didn’t get on the trail until nearly 9:30.

At the trailhead there was a notice of a detour on the trail due to a landslide, more damage from the floods of nearly two years ago. I was in this vicinity when it started raining then, traversing the ridge immediately to the north of Timber Lake, to and from the Gorge Lakes. I will never forget that one – above treeline for an eternity with lightning striking on the other side of Trail Ridge Road.

The Timber Lake trail doesn’t start climbing until you’ve gone nearly a mile through a mixed forest of pine and aspen. The trees are widely spaced and the ground is covered with grass. You can hear the cars on Trail Ridge until the trail finds the crease made by Beaver Creek and the rushing water drowns out the noise.

After crossing Beaver Creek the trail starts climbing. There are many trails that will climb 400 feet in a kilometer. (Yes, I know. Mixing my units.) For most improved trails, that’s a typical steep section; you may have one or two of these separated by level or nearly level sections. Here it’s twice that – you climb about 900 feet in the two kilometers after crossing Beaver Creek.

The detour was marked with this tape

That’s when you arrive at the detour. On my way to this point I pondered what the damage would look like. I was picturing something like the landslide on Twin Sisters but I decided it wouldn’t be like that. On Twin Sisters you cross the landslide area, you don’t detour around it. On Twin Sisters a couple of switchbacks were washed away; you hike along the trail, then climb straight up the slope until you retain the trail; repeat until above the slide.

So I wasn’t surprised to see that the detour takes us straight up the slope. The footing isn’t great; I bet it’s treacherous when it’s wet. The detour goes straight up the slope gaining another 200 feet before contouring along the slope for a while. At the top there’s one spot where the soil has slipped several inches but is still somewhat held together by roots – the top of the landslide. At this point the detour falls straight down the slope a hundred and fifty feet or so and regains the trail.

Prior to the detour, the trail was pretty much free of roots and rocks making it easy to maintain a steady stride. This eased the steep climb somewhat. After the detour the trail features a more typical number of rocks and roots, slowing my pace a bit. All this time the trail has been rising along the side of the valley, a couple hundred feet above Timber Creek. About four miles in, the stream has climbed to meet the trail.

The trail rises steeply again, another two hundred feet in a series of switchbacks, before depositing us at the base of a high, dog-leg valley. The final mile and a quarter to Timber Lake only climbs another 400 feet, skirting the north side of wide open meadows. Timber Creek meanders here in places. But, to me, “meander” connotes slow. The water here is not slow.

The lake is about three times longer than it is wide, and lies more or less north-south in its valley. I arrived at the lake a few minutes before noon. On the way up, I encountered a half dozen or so hikers who were going down but saw no others going my way. I figured I’d stay about an hour and guessed that a handful of other hikers would arrive during that time. I want to maximize my personal space, so I made my way along the western shore to the north end.

The clouds looked to be more dramatic to the south over the mountains, but I didn’t want to shoot directly into the sun. I set the camera up facing the lake’s outlet and the valley beyond. A few feet above the south west shore of Timber Lake is a shallow pond. It has a nice view; I waved “hello” to a pair of hikers who were there enjoying it. By the time I packed up, three other pairs of hikers had spread out on the north east side of Timber Lake where the trail deposited them.

After eating my lunch I watched a large bird soar high above me. It was too far away to be sure, but it was a big bird so I’m guessing an Eagle. He was expending very little energy, gliding back and forth high about the ridge to my east. It amazes me that they can see their prey from such a height.

I began my hike out by continuing around the lake to the eastern shore. Circumnavigating the lake is fairly easy; no trees to speak of, and very little willow. There is some talus at the southern end, but it’s mostly covered with snow right now. The portions that weren’t snow covered were like saturates sponges. It was this way all the way around the lake. Right now, it would be misleading to identify the inlet for Timber Lake. There are a number of trickles that will remain when the snow is all gone, but until then the entire shoreline feeds the lake.

On the way down I decided I’d investigate the landslide area. You’re not supposed to continue down the trail past the detour but curiosity overcame me. By now I was thinking perhaps it would be more like where the Lawn Lake flood undercut that trail. That would certainly call for a detour. There’s a traffic cone block the trail. A short distance beyond it I arrived at the landslide area.

It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as I had envisioned. If I didn’t know it was a landslide, it might have taken me a minute to figure it out. There’s no view; it’s in the middle of forest and it’s not at all like Twin Sisters or Roaring River. Nothing has been washed away. The trees and bushes and grass is still there, but the trees are mostly uprooted, lying at odd angles. The ground didn’t wash away in the flood, it just lost cohesion and slid a short way downhill.

There is a small stream here, if you want to call it that. What channel may have existed before isn’t there any more, and the water has spread itself out – over and among and through. What might it take to make things slip some more? It’s hard to say how wide the slide is – twenty or thirty feet perhaps. But I wouldn’t want to be on it were it to let go. This one is tiny compared to the landslides that have been in the news in recent years, but think of the results if this thing let go. It’s about five hundred feet from the the top of the slide down to Timber Creek.

Managing the detour on the way out was not fun. but it was all downhill after that. Between refilling my water supply, the side trip to see the landslide, and chatting with a group from Oregon it took me a half hour longer on the way out than the way in. I was back to the car by four.

I used the app for the Fitbit on the way up. It drained my phone battery to 32% in the two and a half hours it took to reach the lake. At the lake, I put the phone on airplane mode and when I powered it up back at the car it magically was back to 39% charged. Odd. But clearly I won’t be able to use the app on any hikes longer than three hours. (I have a charger in the car, so it was 100% when I hit the trail.)

I would like to use the app another time or two to get a better sense of how well the wristband measures distance. The app, using GPS, said the hike up was 5.6 miles. That compares well to the 5.3 miles indicated on the sign plus going to the far end of the lake. It was just short of fourteen thousand steps. The wristband game me a distance of 7.1 miles on the way out. That was 14,825 steps, so using the same number of steps per mile as the ascent would put it at more like 5.95 miles.

It credited me with climbing 283 flights of stairs. Around the house, it tends to undercount stairs slightly. They count a ten foot rise as a flight, so that 283 isn’t far off. Net elevation gain to the lake would be something like 210 flights. Every trail has its ups and downs. Throw in the detour and 283 sounds reasonable.

The Fitbit says I burned about 1,800 calories on the way up, another 1,700 on the way down, and a total for the day of nearly 5,900. Typically it shows me burning about 2,600 a day.

As to my heart rate, it breaks my activity into three categories: fat burning, cardio, and peak. They determine these by calculating max heart rate as 220 minus my age. Fat burning is more than 50% of max, cardio is more than 70% of max, and peak is more than 85% of max which for me is about 140. It recorded me in the peak category for 70 minutes on the way up and 15 minutes on the way down. I was in the cardio zone 74 and 126 minutes, and fat burning 15 and 37 minutes.

Okay, enough of that.

By the time I was back to the car, the weather was starting to turn. I heard thunder rumble once just before reaching the car and the clouds over Trail Ridge looked a bit threatening. I elected to leave the top on the car for the drive home.

Traffic on Trail Ridge was sometimes painfully slow. A large herd of elk was grazing right next to the road near the lava cliffs so everybody slowed to a walk. I saw a few lightning strikes over the CCY area but only got sprinkled on. It took an hour to get from the parking lot to the eastern gates of the park. From Estes Park to Lyons we went nearly the speed limit, and sped up again between Lyons and Boulder. Then I ran into a jam – they were carrying the torch for the Special Olympics. I caught them between Jay Road and the Diagonal. That was another ten or fifteen minutes.

All in all, not a bad way to spend the day.

Lake Helene

Posted on June 26, 2015 by dhill

I’ve developed a real appreciation for Lake Helene. It only recently made it on to my radar. I had hiked from Bear Lake to Fern Lake several times before venturing the couple hundred yards off the trail. The hike is a bit on the short side for me so I’ve been doing it either in winter or late spring, most recently last Sunday.

Jerry and I hiked it last year, a bit earlier in June. We hiked over quite a bit of snow, from not much after the Flattop trail junction all the way to the lake. This time there was not as much snow in spite of the cooler and wetter May. But I get ahead of myself.

As it’s a shorter hike, I didn’t need to get up at the crack of dawn. I left the house around seven and stopped in Boulder for breakfast. I arrived at the Bear Lake parking lot at about a quarter to nine. I was surprised none of the signs suggested I park at the shuttle parking lot. It was a near thing. I snagged one of the last few parking places in time to hear the rangers “call it” – the parking lot was full.

The forecast for Denver was a pleasant but warm day with a high in the mid-90’s. I was expecting the usual brilliant blue skies, but it’s been more humid than normal so visibility wasn’t as good as normal. Perhaps we’re also getting some smoke from the forest fires in California. Other than the haze, though, it was fairly clear.

I wanted to use the Fitbit to log the hike, but the Android app was wonky again so I just pushed the button on the wristband. I’d try the app again for the return trip. I had no intention of using it both directions, as my battery life has been poor lately and I suspect the Fitbit app makes it even worse.

Notchtop over Lake Helene

I arrived at Lake Helene a bit after ten and looked for a nice sunny spot to sit and watch the world go by. I made my way to a peninsula of talus surrounded by a sea of snow that stretched about a hundred yards in all directions. Mid-90’s in Denver and here I am, sitting in the pleasantly cool sun on a rock in the snow.

I set up the camera facing down the valley to the north and surveyed the sky. Although the mornings are often cloudless here beneath the divide, it’s typical to see clouds form by eleven or noon. You don’t need time lapse to see them move; they’re generally quite boisterous. Today, though, it was just a thin veil of high clouds with little apparent motion. That’s okay; variety is a good thing.

I spent about two hours not doing much. The snow is melting everywhere around me, just about everywhere I can see. The rocks on Notchtop are streaked dark with water. Lake Helene is brimming at its banks. The falls are too far away to hear, but there is a slight breeze whispering through the pines. Occasional gusts kicked up, painting ripples on the surface of the lake.

Being that there is no official trail to Lake Helene it doesn’t see many visitors. It’s obvious people come here; there is a faint trail and I found footprints in the snow. At this time there are probably fifty people at Emerald Lake, and on the trail there you’re never out of sight or ear-shot of other hikers. Here, I had the illusion of solitude. While I was there, a couple of hikers appeared at the outlet but they were far enough away I never heard them and between here and the Flattop trail junction I met fewer than a dozen other hikers.

According to the Fitbit app, it’s three and a quarter miles. The bracelet comes up with 3.8 miles, but it’s not using GPS. I suspect the shorter distance is more correct. Comparing the data in the two logs, I see pretty much what I’d expect. It took me fifteen minutes longer on the way up than the way back, and I was working harder, burning about 30% more calories.

Back at Bear Lake there was a steady stream of cars arriving at the parking lot. I guess most of these folks figured the signs saying the parking lot was full aren’t intended for them. Strangely, nobody waited for me to back out of my spot. The last guy to pass me waved me by. “Did you just leave that spot?” He thought he might back up and snag that spot, but he never stood a chance. Probably took me 10 minutes to get out of the parking lot. Very crowded.

On the way out of the park, the signs said all the parking lots were full and visitors should try again after 4pm. I’ve never seen any indication that all the parking lots were full before. I don’t recall seeing the shuttle parking lot more than half full. Busy day.

Emerald Lake

Posted on June 2, 2015 by dhill

Sunday, May 31

The last weekend in May is my traditional jumping off point for the summer hiking season. Following tradition, I visited Emerald Lake.

As it’s a very short hike, I could enjoy a lazy morning. I left the house just after nine and had a pleasant drive in spite of the expected heavy traffic. Before I reached Boulder I realized I forgot to bring the spikes. I never had spikes until a few years ago, so I knew I’d have no problem getting to Emerald, but I’m much more comfortable hiking on snow when I have some traction. And it looks like Longs Peak has more snow now than is typical for this time of year – heck, more than is typical for any time of year – and after a very wet and cool May I was expecting to see more snow at Bear Lake than usual.

I arrived at the Bear Lake parking lot at about 10:45, late enough that I had to park near the bottom of the parking lot. There wasn’t as much snow at Bear Lake as I was expecting; clearly what’s been falling in recent weeks has been melting pretty quickly.

I recently bought a Fitbit Charge HR and this hike was the “shakedown cruise” for it. I played around with it on the Black Hills trip and for the Bolder Boulder, but the Android app crashed and I didn’t collect any useful data. I can use it with or without the phone app. If I don’t use the phone, it collects steps taken, flights of stairs climbed (1 for each 10′ gained), my heart rate, and exercise duration. Using the phone as well, I get a map of my hike. My concern is, if I use the phone, how long will the battery last?

I launched the app at 10:52, right at the car, and started walking. I followed the summer route as there wasn’t enough snow to take the winter route. According to the Fitbit, it was 1.82 miles from the car to Emerald Lake. It took me 48 minutes and I gained 818 feet of elevation.

One of the reasons I wanted this particular model of Fitbit is to collect a log of my heart rate. I’ve talked to people using older ones, and you need to use a chest strap to get a log of your heart rate, or stop every now and then and query the device to get your current pulse. Here’s what my heart did on this short hike:

This was just the hike to the lake. I stopped the app there and restarted it for the return trip. Oddly, I had a higher peak heart rate going down than I did going up. I don’t expect to get similar results on my much longer and more strenuous hikes. Unfortunately, when I got back to the car I managed to plug the phone into the charger without noting how low the battery was, so I still have no idea how well it will work for an all-day hike. I’m guessing I’ll be able to use the app on the hike to where ever I’m going, and not use the app on the way out.

There were fewer hikers than I was expecting. I guess the snow had most of them turning around at Nymph Lake. I did overhear a few amusing snippets of conversation. Near Dream Lake: “Where does all the water come from? Snow melt?” Keep in mind, they hiked half the way here over snow. At Emerald Lake as I was leaving, a young couple arrived, looked around for a few seconds, took a picture to prove they’d been there, and turned around to leave. The young woman calls out to a friend, not yet to the lake, “Hardly worth the trouble, it’s not very scenic.” I have several complaints about hiking to Emerald Lake but lack of scenery isn’t one of them.

I had the SLR up and running for the time lapse by 11:52. Readers of the Black Hills posts will recall that the GoPro was a casualty of that trip, so I only had the one camera. I managed to forget to put the lens hood on it, so when it started sprinkling I stopped and packed up as the lens would get wet right away. This turned out to be a good thing, as the graupel started falling almost immediately.

I beat the squall to Dream Lake and figured I’d set up the camera to continue the time lapse. Unfortunately, I ran into some unknown technical difficulty. The timer wasn’t working. It was counting down properly: “0:02… 0:01…” but no shutter release. Very frustrating. I reset it several times to no avail and by the time I gave up, the graupel started falling here. I had planned to snack on my berries while the camera ran for a while, but so it goes.

There’s a nice open view of Glacier Gorge and the Longs Peak complex from the trail below Dream Lake, so I stopped there and ate my blackberries and raspberries. There were squalls over Longs, just as when I paused here on the way up. Very scenic. The weather didn’t follow me past Dream Lake – from my rock with a view to the car, no more precipitation.

I had a lazy drive down the mountain in an unbroken string of traffic from Estes to Lyons.

The time lapse is a bit on the short side this time, but so it goes.

Delahaye Type 145

Posted on May 30, 2015 by dhill

Today Jerry and I went on a tour of the Bugatti restoration shop in Berthoud. This was my third time to the shop. Of course, it’s not the shop that’s the attraction, but the cars. Today there were a handful of Bugattis there, along with a fairly modern Ferrari and a couple of Lotus. The Bugattis are always interesting, but the draw today was the Delahaye Type 145.

Emile Delahaye started building cars in Tours, France in 1894. In 1896 he entered two cars in the Paris-Marseille-Paris race, finishing 8th and averaging 12.5 miles per hour. These nineteenth century cars weren’t very powerful – one model had a 2.2 liter engine pumping out four and a half horsepower.

The state of the art had improved somewhat by 1937, when this car was built. In those days, the racing scene was dominated by government sponsored Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. In an effort to get French auto makers to develop race cars capable of beating the Nazis, the leftist alliance Front populaire (which included, among others, the French Communist Party and Radical and Socialist Party) sponsored the ‘Prix du Million’.

The race was held at the notorious Autodrome de Montlhéry, site of Alberto Ascari’s death a dozen years before. Actually a time trial, each car was required to drive 16 laps (120 miles) and average 91 mph from a standing start. The prize was a million francs, which was a bit over $40,000 at the time but would be close to a million US dollars today.

Delahaye’s answer was the Type 145, chassis 48771 specifically. The car had a 4.5 liter V-12 engine pumping out 220 horsepower. To make the engine as light as possible, the cylinder heads were made of an aluminum alloy and the block was cast in a magnesium alloy. Capable of 160mph, this car took the win driven by Rene Dreyfus.

In addition to winning that race, this car also finished 1st in 1938 Grand Prix de Cork Ireland and Grand Prix dePau, France, as well as 4th at the 1938 Mille Miglia.

This car is worth in the neighborhood of $20 million.

Thanks much to Victor for sharing his shop with us and to Skip for organizing the event.

LOCO Black Hills – Part 3

Posted on May 25, 2015 by dhill

May 18

This morning we opted for the hotel’s breakfast. Genae tried the automatic pancake maker, I had two fruit cups. The plan today was another picnic, this time at Devil’s Tower. We’ll make a pit stop in Sundance, WY, where there’s a Subway a block from the gas station. We hit the road by nine.

We headed west on US 16 to Newcastle then north on US 85 to a place called Four Corners. Odd name because there aren’t four corners there. Odd, even, that it has a name. There are two t-junctions and the Four Corners Country Inn. We took the second T and WY 585 northwest to Sundance.

Harry Longabaugh made a name for himself here at the age of 15 by being arrested for stealing a horse. That was the only time the Sundance Kid ever got arrested. Half of us first got sandwiches while the other half pitted for fuel. While waiting for everybody to get provisioned up we saw three state troopers, the only ones we saw since Nebraska.

We had a pleasant little picnic then headed for a walk around the tower. After two pictures, the camera quit working. It’s just not my weekend with cameras. But it was a pleasant day, mostly sunny and cool. The Tower Trail is about a mile and a quarter. We took our time, stopping often to look for climbers and visiting every little spur of trail. When we finished the loop, we did the beginning portion again. The it was back to the visitor center.

Somebody said Mike wanted to line up for a group photo down at the entrance. It was a bit of a miscommunication. We exited the park and waited in the parking lot but Mike was at a much more scenic picnic area. We finally got our act together and got to the right place.

“Do Not Clean or Wash Here”

Leaving the park we took WU 24 east. This took us to a junction with US 85 just south of Belle Fourche (pronounced “Bell Foosh”). The road is a four lane divided highway, but construction had the right lane closed for quite a while. In Spearfish we made a pit stop. Overheard remarks: “They’re Lotus Elises!” and “Is there a rally going on?” There were a lot of flying insects there, but they all congregated on Cindy’s yellow Evora. She says it happens all the time; she calls the paint “Bug Yellow”. I didn’t see any bugs on my yellow stripe or wheels, clearly not “Bug Yellow”.

As is apt to happen with a chain of a dozen cars, we got split up in town after leaving the gas station. By the time we made the right turn on US 14A and headed south through Spearfish Canyon we were down to about half a dozen cars. The canyon is very scenic. Frank Lloyd Wright visited here in 1935 and was quite enamored of the place. There are many sheer cliffs and numerous wide ledges sprouting tall pines. To Wright, it evoked classical Chinese paintings.

Staying on US 14A, we exit the canyon and eventually rejoin US 85. We’re heading northbound this time, to Lead where we find US 385 and the road to Hill City and Custer. Genae and I were wondering how you pronounce “Lead”. Is it lead as in “Wild Bill Hickcok got filled full of lead in Deadwood” or lead as in “you can lead a horse to water”? It’s the second.

Lead, like Deadwood, had road construction on the main drag. Here, mercifully they kept us out of the mud by a detour through some back alleys. The trip down 385 back to Custer was a repeat of yesterday but with better weather. We thought we’d get tricky and take the truck route through Hill City and get to the head of the group, but I turned too soon and had to make a u-turn. So we were shunted to near the back of the pack.

Ambiguous sign?

As there was no group activity planned for the evening, we figured to grab a quick dinner then go back and drive the Needles Highway in a more leisurely manner. At the hotel I started one of the camera batteries charging. Then I noticed that the battery pack was a bit loose. It didn’t obviously feel loose, so I didn’t notice. I tightened it up and all is well now.

Genae wanted pizza, so we asked the hotel desk clerk for a recommendation and thus we were off to Pizza Worx. Not much in the ambiance department, but decent pizza. When we got back to the hotel to pick up the camera, we heard talk of folks wanting to get together for dinner. A large group of them decided to the Blue Bell Lodge.

We drove the Needles Highway the opposite direction from yesterday, slowly, and stopped for photos several times. It looks like the pine beetles have been at work here; quite a few trees have been cut down and the wood stacked up in piles. It’s not as bad as in some places in Colorado, hopefully the clearing they’ve done will stop the critters. We pretty much had the place to ourselves and saw very few other cars.

Eye of the Needle tunnel

It was still fairly early when we got back to Custer so we headed back into Custer State Park again searching for bison. We didn’t see any buffalo but did see much of our group parked at the Blue Bell Lodge. It would be dark before we could complete the wildlife loop so we just went a couple miles farther south and turned around. No bison but loads of white tail deer, some pronghorns, a rafter of turkeys, and even some elk.

After dinner we stopped at the Purple Pie Place but nothing struck Genae’s fancy. So when we approached the Blue Bell we decided to stop there for dessert. The gang was still there, so we joined them and ordered the apple crisp à la mode (with Blue Bell ice cream, of course).

Drove 329 miles.

May 19 – Custer to Denver

Two years ago yesterday, May 18, 2013, LOCO awoke in Telluride to snow on the cars. There wasn’t any snow on the cars when we woke up today, but it started snowing before we were downstairs for breakfast. Just about everybody got towels or washcloths from their rooms and cleared the snow from the cars. A snow brush is not generally carried as standard equipment in a Lotus.

We were on the road by 8am. Yesterday we spent most of the day near the front of the pack. Today we stayed near the back. The snow only lasted a little while – we were not only heading south, but downhill as well. Early morning the precipitation was variable but as the day wore on the rain became heavier and more steady. We considered making a stop at Lusk but stuck with the group. Our next scheduled pit stop was for Torrington.

Unfortunately, the gas station we stopped at was small. Only a couple of pumps and a single bathroom. By the time we got stopped, there were half a dozen people standing in line. Genae, not able to wait in line, found a bathroom nearby after a couple of attempts. Before she got back I had decided we’d try another place. We didn’t need gas, but I didn’t want to stand in line here, in the rain. We found another gas station down the road. Jeremy pulled in after us, and that was the last we saw of anybody from our group.

We continued southbound on US 85 a bit slower than we were going in the group. I was expecting them to catch us sooner or later, but perhaps they slowed down as well due to the rain. The wind added to the fun, a crosswind blowing strongly from the east. Oncoming trucks were brutal, throwing up huge clouds of spray. Luckily not much standing water on the road.

The group never caught us. We had lunch in Wellington and were home by 3pm.

We really enjoyed the trip – the roads, the sights, and friends. Thanks to everybody for their companionship and especially to Mike for putting it all together.

Drove 342 miles.

LOCO Black Hills – Part 2

Posted on May 22, 2015 by dhill

May 17

Although the hotel provides breakfast, nothing on offer particularly appealed to us so we decided we should head to town instead. We ate at Baker’s Bakery and Café, a little place with about ten tables and the tag line “you’ll love our buns”. After bacon, eggs, hash browns and toast we went back to the hotel for our usual drivers meeting. Today we would drive the Needles Highway and the Iron Mountain Road before visiting Mount Rushmore. Then we’d head to Sturgis for lunch and return to Custer through Deadwood and Hill City. I mounted the GoPro above the left rear wheel and we hit the road.

We headed north from Custer on Sylvan Lake Rd, SD 89. For the first few miles there are numerous houses and small ranches. One has a gate with big statues: a longhorn and a bison. He has a few dozen head of each. At Sylvan Lake we reach the junction with SD 87, through here known as the Needles Highway.

The road is quite narrow – no danger of getting stuck behind an RV here. There is no center stripe most of the way, and there are a couple of primitive narrow tunnels blasted through sheer granite walls. Mike was in the lead up to this point, but pulled over for the canyon carvers. We passed Mike and the others who wanted to take their rime but didn’t go as fast as many. We let two cars pass.

The highway is named for the granite needles that punctuate the terrain. Peter Norbeck (Governor and US Senator) plotted the route on horseback and foot and construction was completed in 1922. It cost so much at the time, locals called it the Needless Highway. The road has been well maintained but not significantly upgraded. Very nearly a one lane road, there are plenty of pullouts and overlooks.

SD 87 ends at a T-junction with US 16/16A. There’s a small parking lot there, and restrooms. We stopped there for a short break, completely filling the lot. The rangers from the Custer State Park entrance station walked over the hill and took some photos. While we were stopped, I remembered to power off the GoPro to save battery. I even remembered to turn it back on when we left.

A few miles up the road I happened to look in my left hand mirror to see the suction cup mount fail and the GoPro go flying off the car. I think it survived the initial impact intact. Colin was behind me in his new Evora and he managed to dodge it. After that I didn’t see what happened. I stopped and turned around as quickly as I could and made my way back to the “scene of the crime.”

The mount was in the middle of the road, the camera nowhere to be seen. John rolled up in his Elan and helped me search. I walked up and down the side of the road a few times, along the road and down by the stream. I found the battery and the back door of the camera, both more or less intact. But no sign of the camera or housing. I was afraid somebody ran it over, possibly damaging their car, but I asked around and nobody says they hit it. After the futile search, we figured we were now on our own, well behind the group.

Rolling again, we made our way to the Iron Mountain Road. We were a bit chagrined that the road is being resurfaced. The sixteen mile stretch we were on had had the surface ground, leaving a rough road with shallow holes and loose rocks and gravel. This road, like the Needles Highway, was laid out by Peter Norbeck and is also known as the Peter Norbeck Memorial Highway. He designed it as a scenic low speed route for tourists.

Like the Needles Highway, most of it is narrow and twisty. It features a few “pigtail” bridges and one lane tunnels. A pigtail bridge is much like it sounds – the road crosses a bridge then turns 270 degrees to pass under the bridge just crossed. The tunnels, again, are one lane and hewn from solid granite. Two of the tunnels are aligned with Mount Rushmore and obstructing trees removed. One of the tunnels dumps you directly onto a pigtail bridge. At the second tunnel with a Rushmore view, I was out of the car lining up a picture when Terry rolled up in his M100. We weren’t last ones on the road after all.

This narrow, twisty portion of US 16A meets SD 244 and widens to four lanes. We went left at this intersection, taking 244 to Mount Rushmore. When we arrived at the entrance station to pay our fee, the ranger asked if we were from Colorado: “I sent the rest of your group to level 6. Follow the red arrows.” Our cars occupied about a third of the level, and, as usual, had drawn admirers.

We last visited Mount Rushmore six years ago during a Clark family reunion. That time we came after dark to see the monument all lit up. This time we had daylight and scattered clouds. Lots of people visit Mount Rushmore and everybody tends to get the same picture, so I wanted to get away from the amphitheater. This turned out to be a good choice, as we weren’t allowed into the amphitheater because there was a high school graduation going on there. What a great place for a graduation ceremony.

We hiked on the Presidential Trail. Luckily, we went to the right. The trail makes a loop from the Grand View Terrace, down the hill and up a boardwalk slightly up the slope below the carvings. We didn’t know that half the trail was closed and might have been discouraged had we gone the other way instead. The weather was still pleasant and we enjoyed the short walk. And I got the same pictures as everybody else.

Next on the agenda was a drive to Sturgis via the outskirts of Rapid City. The weather held out until a bit before we arrived there, when it got windy and rainy. We weren’t too impressed by Sturgis and broke off from the group here, perhaps hunt buffalo in Custer before going back to the hotel.

We ate at Taco Johns then headed to Deadwood. It rained the whole way, and the main drag through much of Deadwood is under construction, a muddy pot-holed mess. The place has been overrun by casinos. Everything historical in Blackhawk and Central City were pretty much destroyed by the construction of casinos in the name of historical preservation. Deadwood looks to have suffered the same fate. We don’t gamble, so we didn’t stop other than to refuel.

The weather cleared about half way to Hill City, which boded well for a trip through the park. The drive from Deadwood to Hill City is pleasant if not dramatic. It had the bonus of having very little traffic. I caught up to no cars for several miles, and if I had there were ample passing zones. Unfortunately, when I did catch traffic, the passing zones evaporated.

When we stopped to pay the entry fee the ranger said, “Your car is too short!” As it so happens, the park is a free today. The ranger recommended Wildlife Loop Road. This is the third narrow road we’ve driven today. Instead of granite tunnels and pigtail bridges, it’s eighteen miles of riparian areas and grassy hills.

Genae was hoping we’d see the baby bison again. She was disappointed. All we saw were a few lone males. One guy was quite close to the road. When we stopped to watch them yesterday they were making a cacophony of grunts and belch-like rumbles. This lone one was quiet.

We came across a solitary pronghorn by a cattle guard. She posed for me a little bit, crossed the road, and scratched in the gravel a couple times. Then she proceeded to piss. In retrospect, I should have taken the picture. But, frankly, I was a bit offended!

There was very little traffic. If somebody was stopped, that generally meant there was an animal in the vicinity. The biggest crowd we saw were stopped to take pictures of some donkeys . The asses didn’t appeal to us, so we skipped the photo opportunity.

Dinner was a group affair. We ate at the State Game Lodge, which made for a pleasant little drive. It’s about twelve miles from Custer, five or six miles into the park. It’s a great building, built in 1920. President Coolidge booked a two week visit but stayed for thirteen. The room we were in looked to be newer construction. I considered the Cobb salad (with hard boiled quail egg) or the bison steak but went with the buffalo burger instead.

Drove 250 miles

Nobody is Listening

Road Trip, Track Day, and Hiking Adventures

Author Archives: dhill