Tag Archives: North Inlet

Porcupine 2

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Saturday, July 29

We had a leisurely morning, putting boots on the trail shortly after 8.

As I said, I’ve hiked to Bench Lake before, solo. I remember easily finding the beginning of the “trail”. I recall seeing a few cairns, and that the trail was not great, disappearing and reappearing, but I don’t remember it being particularly challenging. I have a quite distinct memory of the final few yards before reaching the lake where I lost my full water bottle.

For most of my professional life, when doing software support, I had a saying: “The user is not a reliable witness.” They either don’t really remember what they did, or they have some motive for not telling the whole story. When it comes to getting from the trail to Bench Lake, I was not a reliable witness.

We found no obvious trail near Ptarmigan Creek. Route finding was challenging. We did come across a few small cairns, but very few. And the last few yards involved a five or six-foot climb up solid rock, not the steep, loose stuff I distinctly recall. How is it my memory has tricked me so?

When we arrived at this final six-foot climb we met two hikers on their way down. They had zone camped up here. They said they’d wanted to “get to the lake”, but didn’t say which one. I think they meant Ptarmigan Lake. In any event, Bench Lake was the only one they reached. I give them lots of credit, climbing up here with backpacks.

I don’t know how many hikers make it up here, but I don’t imagine it’s many. Even so, they found somebody’s water bottle. It wasn’t mine from the last time I was here, but a disposable one. They reported seeing a nice herd of elk and that they found an elk skeleton. We exchanged farewells and headed our separate ways.

Standing at the outlet of Bench Lake you are at the foot of a large valley, “The Wonderland”. From here, we will head north up the valley to find the confluence of the outlet streams of the three alpine lakes. In theory, we could go to either Snowdrift or Wonderland and come down the other. No amount of map study is as good as getting eyes on the terrain.

Until about September, the choice in these valleys is whether to slog through marshy meadows or keep to higher ground and deal with deadfall mazes. I didn’t mind the wet ground so much, it was never ankle-deep. But Gordon was in lightweight shoes and was getting his feet wet. We kept switching back and forth.

We were nearly to the confluence before we got a good view of the outlet from Snowdrift. It looked really steep. I certainly didn’t want to hike down it, and I wasn’t sure I was willing to go up. It was getting on towards 11, and we still had a mile of bushwhacking and 700 vertical feet to go. There was no way I’d be able to get to both today, so it was an easy decision to head to Wonderland Lake and skip Snowdrift.

The creek in this wide, flat valley often becomes braided, running two, three, or four courses through the meadows. We crossed Ptarmigan’s outlet and then Wonderland’s, to climb up to the lake on the western side of its stream. We made at least four crossings to cross the two streams. In this area, we came across where the elk had bedded down. The grass was flattened by five or six elk. We didn’t see any elk all day, it’s a big valley, but I was stepping over their droppings constantly.

Having made our way to the head of the valley, it was time to make our second big climb: 350′ in 0.2 miles. Gordon led the way. He’s an excellent route-finder. He’s sensitive to my limitations regarding exposure, and he’s quicker than I am and gets far enough ahead of me that even if he backtracks a few yards, I never catch up. Saves me a lot of effort.

At the top of the climb, you emerge onto a broad and deep shelf of dune-like granite marbled with ponds and grassy ramps. The shelf holds both lakes, maybe half a mile apart. We still had another two hundred feet to climb, but nothing steep. There was no krummholz, and the only willow I saw was no more than a foot tall and easily avoided. Maybe it was the climb, but the view of Andrews Peak behind us was breathtaking.

The second or third time we told each other the lake was over the next rise, we finally emerged above the southern shore.

The hike from the campsite to the lake is only about three miles. Adding a mile round trip to the other lake doesn’t sound too bad, particularly given the open sight lines. We didn’t get to the lake until 12:35, so maybe had we left an hour earlier… even so, it wouldn’t have mattered. I was beat: my next step from here was to head back to camp.

I ate my picnic lunch and watched the world go by. Gordon circumnavigated the lake, pausing often to inspect something that caught his attention. We started back.

  • Bench Lake and the valley beyond
  • Bench Lake
  • Andrews Peak
  • “Wonderland Lake”
  • Elk backbone

Only a few steps below the lake it started raining, soon followed by rolling thunder. After a few minutes, the rain turned to hail. But it was over before long. We didn’t exactly follow our route up. Not that we weren’t trying. “Did we come up the right side of that outcropping or the left?”

Back near the confluence of the streams, before making four or five crossings, we came across the elk skeleton the other hikers reported. I’ve seen a few now, and generally they’re not so much “skeletons” as “piles of bones”. This one, though, had an intact backbone.

Approaching Bench Lake, we came across a tree with an NPS sign posting “No Fishing”. I’m sure we walked right by it on the way up, but it’s facing north instead of south. It’s pretty weather-worn; has probably been there for several years. I wonder how often they send a ranger up there to replace it.

Just before returning to where we met the other hikers, we spotted a nice game trail. Gordon followed it. It wasn’t in the right direction; he suggested that it just bypassed the big rock we’d have to climb down. I wondered aloud how far we wanted to follow it. Gordon’s response was, “That’s the question!” We never turned back.

Next to Bench Lake’s outlet is a glacial knob about a hundred feet high. The trail took us over the saddle between the knob and the mountain flank to the east. In camp last night, I spent quite a while looking at this terrain. I was wondering if it might be easier just to head to Ptarmigan Creek in a straight line from the camp instead of taking the trail to the creek. It seemed doable. I didn’t even consider coming down from the saddle, though.

Game trails are nice until they’re not. This one was nice for quite a while before it petered out on a stretch of steep, loose aggregate. My favorite! I was too concentrated on my next step to look for my tent down below. I’m sure there were several places where it would have been visible. The steep, loose stuff turned into a deadfall maze that eventually led us to Ptarmigan Creek, only a hundred yards or so above the trail.

Back at camp, we put our cans of beer in the stream to chill. We were visited again by the lone doe, retracing her steps of yesterday evening almost exactly, and at almost the same time of day. She made an extra visit, well after eight, when all was in shadow, she in a mad dash.

It was overcast when we turned in, but on my early morning comfort break the stars were shining brightly.

Sunday, July 30

The hike out was routine. I spotted two snakes, one not longer than 18″, the other not shorter than a foot. I’ve seen snakes in the Park before, but not more than a handful. I was surprised to see two, within just a few minutes of each other. I also had a covey of dusky grouse cross the trail in front of me. I didn’t get a good count, maybe a dozen, including four young ones.

I was happy to be headed home. Yesterday was a maximum effort day; exhausting but fulfilling. I’m so fortunate that I am healthy enough and fit enough and have the means to take these trips. I try not to take it for granted.

I really enjoy navigating my way through this untracked wilderness.

Porcupine 1

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Ptarmigan Creek is about six and a half miles up the North Inlet trail. The creek joins North Inlet after falling about a thousand feet in about half a mile. The creek drains a hanging valley called “The Wonderland”. In this large valley are Bench Lake, perched above War Dance Falls, and three high alpine lakes: Ptarmigan Lake, Snowdrift Lake, and “Wonderland Lake”. (“Wonderland Lake” is not officially named but is widely used.)

I’ve day hiked to Ptarmigan Lake and Bench Lake and know that the other two are well out of my single-day range. Regular readers will recall that I’m a big fan of the North Inlet Trail. My two longest day hikes were on this trail. Gordon and I did a backpacking trip three years ago and on the hike out, I paid particular attention to the locations of each of the campsites near Ptarmigan Creek.

The plan was to spend two nights at Porcupine, a quarter of a mile from Ptarmigan Creek. Hike in on Friday, spend all day Saturday in “The Wonderland” in an attempt to visit Snowdrift Lake and “Wonderland Lake”, and hike out on Sunday. Here’s what Lisa Foster says about reaching Snowdrift and Wonderland:

Reaching the lakes involves slogging through marshland and bushwhacking into stunted forest, then scrambling over rough talus fields to boulder-strewn granite benches.

In the off-season, I bought a new sleeping bag and repaired or replaced equipment due to the squirrel incident last year. I have not fully repaired the backpack – the damn squirrel ate a good amount of the webbing. I might still need to have the webbing repaired, but I’m not sure it’s necessary. I replaced the half-eaten poles with a pair of carbon fiber ones with cam-style locks.

Friday, July 28

I’m starting to get paranoid about how early I need to get to the trailhead in order to get parking. The campsite is seven miles from the trailhead, which is a fair distance, but you only climb 800′, and the trail has many extended sections that allow you to keep a long, steady stride, as if on a sidewalk. I figure three or three and a half hours is all it will take. There’s no point in getting to the trailhead at 7 am. Given an estimate of two and a half hours drive to the trailhead and three and a half hiking to camp, Gordon suggested he pick me up at 9. If we don’t get to park in the lot, we’ll have to add a quarter of a mile each way to the hike. My worries were needless: there was room for five or six more vehicles.

I haven’t hiked the North Inlet trail since the fire. But I have hiked through several recent burn scars so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. What struck me this time was the scale of the fire. I hiked on the western fringes of the fire last summer. The extent of the East Troublesome fire east of the Divide is greater than either the Fern Lake fire or the Big Meadows fire. The area that East Troublesome burned east of the Divide is a tiny fraction of what East Troublesome burned in the Park. And the acreage burned in the Park is a tiny fraction of the total fire.

Wildfires are a natural part of the life cycle of the forest. But, historically, fires never burned such large areas. More than a century ago, we decided it would be a good thing to suppress wildfires. So we have a century’s worth of accumulated fuel piling up on the forest floors, and we have a lot of dead trees due to beetle kill.

The trail begins with a stretch of total devastation. I expect that trees next to lakes or streams will survive these fires. The trees along Fern Creek survived this fire, but even around the much larger North Inlet, the trees were burned. Without the forest, the terrain is revealed. Everything in sight is totally burned.

Totally burned: no trees survive. All the trunks are still standing. The fire only burns a couple of millimeters into the tree, not rendering it to ash but roasting it. The needles are gone as are many of the branches. Over the next thirty years, almost all of these dead tree trunks will fall. Deadfall accumulated prior to the fire burned in a similar way, but often with a thicker layer of charcoal.

Also totally burned: the cabin that was about twenty minutes up the trail from the parking lot. It was well-maintained and looked to see regular service. All that’s left now is the “Private Property: Stay on Trail” sign and the old hand pump for the water well.

Last year, near Fern Lake, fireweed was by far the most common living plant. Today, fireweed is still in abundance, but many of the rest of the cast of wildflowers are present as well. If you can stand a long walk in direct sunlight, this should be a great wildflower hike for many years.

Maybe an hour into the hike, we met a group on horseback heading back to the trailhead. I asked them how much farther until we get some shade. The guy I asked laughed. “Back at camp!” In fact, though, it wasn’t that much farther. The area around Cascade Falls didn’t burn too badly. The fire burned thoroughly on the bank opposite the trail, but nothing on the north side of the stream was burned. We took a break here in the shade of the trees and the spray of the falls and had lunch.

Above Cascade Falls, the trail reenters the burn scar. It’s not a long section, and the burn ends before Big Pool. Above Big Pool, there is still some burn, but it’s not totally burned. In places, it looks like the fire was on the ground rather than in the crowns of the trees. Deadfall is blackened, standing beetle kill trees are charred at the base, but many trees still live.

Porcupine campsite is about a quarter of a mile beyond Ptarmigan Creek and is on the opposite side of North Inlet as the trail. It is reached by crossing a long bridge made out of a tree trunk sawn flat. It bounces when you cross it and bounces oddly when two people are crossing it.

There are two sites here. We took the western one without even looking at the other one. The western one is very close to the bridge and only a few yards from the stream. After we were set up, I decided to find out whether we made the correct choice. The eastern camp is about a hundred paces from the bridge and not anywhere near water. Other than that, they were much the same, down to identical sawn-log benches. Due to our easy proximity to water, I think we made the right choice. That camp was unoccupied when I looked, and we never saw anybody cross the bridge. I’m surprised that a campsite went unused.

  • Total devastation
  • Charred trunk
  • Our camp
  • The stream and bridge
  • The other camp
  • Lone Doe

We had nice weather all afternoon. Clear skies above us, but threatening weather to our north. We got sprinkled on briefly. We met a group of four backpackers; we caught up to them and we ended up passing each other a couple of times. I passed them when it was starting to rain and they stopped to don their rain gear. I told them that I could guarantee it would stop raining if I went to the effort of putting my rain jacket on. Amusingly, it quit raining before I was out of their sight.

Our camp was visited by a lone doe. She seemed pretty habituated to people. She would come within feet of us or our gear until one of us made eye contact with her. Even then, she only retreated a few yards. She was browsing around our camp for fifteen or twenty minutes before she crossed the river.

The south side of the river near the camp was unburned, but just across the river, the fire had gone through on the ground. Looking across to the other side of the valley: charred deadfall, charred beetle kill, and still quite a few live trees.

Passing through the areas of total devastation we were unmolested by mosquitoes. At camp, though, it was another story. My third application of repellent was finally enough to get the little buggers to not land on me. They hovered persistently, though, much to my annoyance.

As it was getting dark, I asked Gordon what time sunset was. “Astronomical or civil?” I rephrased the question: When will we see our first star? Neither of us offered a guess, which turned out to be the correct answer. It was cloudy and we never saw any stars. I was awakened during the night by a short rain but otherwise slept well.

And what did I forget to pack? Just paper towels. Genae even asked if I had some, and I showed her a Ziploc bag with what turned out to be nothing but toilet paper. If this is my biggest problem, it’ll be a great trip.

Pine Marten 2

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Friday, September 25

We awoke to another beautiful day in the neighborhood. That is, I should say “I awoke” because Gordon had a sleepless night.

Last night when I hit the sack, I plugged my phone into my battery. For some reason, the phone insists on being powered on when it’s charging. It read 46%. A few minutes later, it read 47%. Good, it’s charging. When I woke up, the phone was at 0%. The cable had come undone and the phone just ran down.

This is a bit of a problem. The phone is my only camera. The SLR, which failed on the Renegade trip, was still not back from Canon. I plugged the phone back into the battery and set it on a stable base. It got up to 38% by the time we hit the trail a bit before nine.

This might be the time for peak aspen in the Park, I don’t know. There aren’t many aspens in the valley. It’s all pine, so you might not expect much color. You’d be wrong. In this pine forest, the autumn colors are on the ground. The leaves go from green to green and yellow to yellow to gold then a bright red and finally to a dull brown. Sometimes large areas are all one color, sometimes all the colors show up within a few feet.

In a pine forest, autumn colors are on the ground, not in the trees

I’d said that we’d be to Nokoni in an hour (which is what it took yesterday) and to Nanita an hour after that. As expected, it did take an hour to reach Nokoni, but we made it from Nokoni to Nanita in forty minutes. None of that territory was new to me. I had also said it would take another hour to get to Catherine. That turned out to be quite optimistic.

We made our way across Nanita’s outlet and quickly found a game trail. I thought of yesterday’s ranger calling them “moose trails”. I’m not sure why I found it amusing, but I did. You know you’re on a good game trail when you keep finding poo. Elk pellets and moose patties.

It didn’t take us too long to get out in the open. There are three great cirques between Ptarmigan Mountain and Andrews Peak. To our right we had a nice view of the one closest to Andrews. The ramp we were climbing got pretty steep. I took my time, often checking out the view behind me.

Lake Nanita and Ptarmigan Mountain

The top of the saddle is 600′ above Nanita. Catherine is 800′ below us, but out of sight around the corner. Directly in front of us, about a mile away, is a pass, another saddle. There’s a small pond there, a couple of hundred feet below the top. A century ago, there were plans to make a trail connecting Spirit Lake and ‘Lake Catherine’. Presumably, that is where the trail would have gone.

There at the top Gordon and I parted ways. He wanted to take a more direct, slightly steeper route to Catherine. I opted for the longer, shallower arc, out of the trees. It was nice, easy walking for the most part, generally following game trails. Only as I approached the lake did I need to get back to the edge of the trees to avoid giant boulders.

‘Lake Catherine’ from the southwest

I got to Catherine at 12:30, so three and three-quarters hours. I found Gordon, who said he hadn’t been waiting long. But he is a patient man, so he may have been enjoying the wait. We scouted the northwestern shore for a place to snack and relax in the sun but out of the wind.

We spotted a promising place nearly opposite us, but on closer inspection, the trees there were swaying pretty good in the wind. We continued along the shore. The spot we eventually picked was pleasant enough, a few chill gusts excepted.

‘Lake Catherine’ as seen from the outlet

Gordon couldn’t resist pointing out that he put all this effort into getting to one of the least visited lakes in the Park, only to find me there, too.

After our relaxing picnic, we started our bushwhack. I have a good idea that Foster would call it an “arduous bushwhack”.

One of the great things about hiking at this time of year, other than the fantastic colors on the ground, is that everything is much dryer. All the streams are running quite low and are much easier to cross. The grassy marshes are more grass than marsh now. This would be much more difficult earlier in the season when it’s all wet.

According to the map, it didn’t matter which side of the outlet we descended until we came to a pond two hundred feet below the lake. At this pond, we’d need to go down the right side to avoid some steep terrain. We had good game trails and there wasn’t too much deadfall.

Unnamed pond below ‘Lake Catherine’, looking back the way we came

Below this pond, things got interesting. It was easy going when we had game trails to follow, but we started coming across denser deadfall. We didn’t worry too much about staying close to the stream, all we had to do was go downhill. Maybe half an hour after leaving the pond we came across a stream. I thought, “Ah, a tributary!” But checking the map, we’d arrived at the North Inlet. Although the stream we’d been following from Catherine carries about the same volume of water as the stream that flows from Lake Powell, it’s farther to Lake Powell, so that stream is the North Inlet while the one we’d been paralleling has no name.

We didn’t need to cross the North Inlet so we didn’t. Yet. We followed it for just a few yards before returning to our unnamed stream. This we crossed. After a while, we decided that the “grass was greener” on the other side of the North Inlet, so we crossed it. This we did a few times before we were done.

Once, on the north side of the stream, our game trail petered out in a mass of deadfall. We were working our way slowly through here when we heard an elk bugle. I asked Gordon how far away he thought that was. A few minutes later through the trees he spotted a bull and some cows about a hundred yards ahead of us, crossing our path, headed uphill. The bull stopped and bugled. Given how far the sound travels, I expected it to be much louder. Another bull some ways behind us bugled a response. How close was he?

We worked our way through the deadfall and had easy going for only a short distance. We entered another pile of deadfall. This one, though, was different. Instead of the trees lying in random directions, here they were all facing one way. And the dead trunks weren’t still connected to their roots. The roots were still in the ground, with stumps two or three or four feet tall, splintered. This is an avalanche debris field.

Crossing the North Inlet for the last time, we began searching for Lake Solitude (not to be confused with Solitude Lake, in Glacier Gorge). This is a small forest lake with no inlet or outlet. In the proximity of Solitude, the stream meanders through a large open meadow. We wandered around a bit, backtracked a little, made at least a token search for it, but didn’t stumble upon it.

The rest of the way back to camp, there weren’t any serious obstacles. There weren’t that many game trails, either, but so it goes. Before we knew it, we spotted Gordon’s hammock. Home again, home again, jiggety-jig!

We left Catherine a few minutes after one and arrived in camp at 4:30, so we managed about a mile an hour. I’ve done worse. My trip to Julian Lake a couple of months ago had some brutal stretches. And up Spruce Canyon with Gordon last year we could only manage half a mile an hour.

To celebrate the completion of our little odyssey we drank the rest of the beer Gordon carted up and had dinner. The skies weren’t quite clear, just some thin, high clouds; a lacy veil that slightly diffused the light of the gibbous moon.

Before dusk, another helicopter flew over. It followed the trail up the mountain towards the Divide. A few minutes later we heard another chopper, but couldn’t spot it. Maybe it was the same one, on its return trip. This was not the cargo helicopter, I think it was the same kind as the one I saw on my Hunters Creek hike – a rescue chopper.

Not long after, Gordon spotted a blinking light on the mountainside across from us. It was random, intermittent. It didn’t take us long to see that it was not one but several lights. We discussed it: we agreed it probably wasn’t aliens, and elk don’t generally carry lights. It had to be people, right? What were they doing up there, wandering around like that? Was it a search party?

Well, I didn’t print a map of that part of the trail. We weren’t going that way, and I didn’t pay particular attention to the layout of the trail. I knew there were a couple of large switchback sections, but thought they were farther up the valley, out of our sight. I was wrong. The first switchbacks, climbing six hundred feet, were directly in front of us. We’d been watching a group of six or eight hikers work their way down the mountain on the trail.

Tonight, Gordon gave up before I did. I wasn’t as cold as I was last night, so wasn’t in as big of a hurry to climb into the warm sleeping bag.

We didn’t see another person all day.

Saturday, September 26

I took my obligatory excursion at one. The thin veil of clouds was gone, the air was calm.

We were packed up and on the trail a bit before nine. It took us four hours to hike in, we should be able to beat that by a bit on the way out. On most backpacking trips, the pack weighs heavily on my back on the hike out, but today I felt pretty good.

We ran into another ranger. This one was hiking in. When we came upon him, he was talking to a woman backpacker on her way out. We chatted a bit. I asked if there was some search operation last night. There wasn’t, so we were seeing hikers. The woman somehow knew that a group had gotten a late start. They didn’t make it to camp (or out? I’m not sure) until 11:00 pm.

We told him we’d been to Catherine. He said, “People used to walk all through these forests twelve or fifteen years ago. Not as much now; there’s too much deadfall from the pine beetle.” He told us he was working “pre-rescue”. He was on the lookout for people “wearing flip-flops and not carrying any water.”

As we got closer to the trailhead, we encountered more and more hikers. At first, I was counting them. Once they started coming in groups of four or six or more, I switched to counting dozens. In the end, I figured it was 8 or 9 dozen. I couldn’t help but wonder where they all parked. I don’t think there’s room for much more than a dozen cars in the lot. (Most of them were parked on the paved road a quarter-mile below the trailhead.)

I did get a bit of a kick from some of the questions people asked me. “Did you make it all the way? All the way to the falls?” The falls are the first point of interest on the trail. Yes, I made it “all the way”. Another one saw my big backpack and asked, “Are you backpacking?”

Back at the trailhead, I was happy to be done.

But, boy, what a satisfying trip! The weather was great, the scenery awesome. I felt great the whole time. We saw an elk bugle, marveled at mysterious lights, and went to one of the least visited lakes in the Park.

Pine Marten 1

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My third and final backcountry permit is for the 24th and 25th at Pine Marten, the campsite at the base of the spur trail to Lake Nokoni and Lake Nanita. I’ve been to both of them on day trips. Once to Nanita and once failing to reach Pettingell Lake. This time, the idea is to get to ‘Lake Catherine’, the officially unnamed lake highest in the valley between Andrews Peak and Mount Alice.

The Foster Guide says it’s 12.8 miles from the trailhead with an elevation gain of 1,800′. This is not a fair description. Her route is from Lake Nanita, which has the hiker crossing a ridge at just over 11,000′ and another that reaches nearly 11,400′ to get to a lake at only 10,600′. There is another way to get there without gaining and losing so much elevation: follow the stream.

The Pine Marten campsite is at something like 7.8 miles in, and sits at 9,500′. The route via Nanita, then, is five miles and climbs a total of 2100 feet. The bushwhack is maybe 3.5 miles and gains about 1000 feet. The Nanita route is quite scenic and navigation is trivial. The bushwhack route is through dense forest with few views and constantly challenging route-finding.

After pondering for some time, I decided a loop might be the best way: take the Nanita route to get there and bushwhack on the return trip. As a bonus, it should be easy to pick up Lake Solitude.

Thursday, September 24

Gordon drove; we had our choice of spaces in the small parking lot at the trailhead and were hiking before nine. It was a beautiful morning, with some high, thin, wispy clouds. There was a fair amount of haze when you faced the sun, but a nice, deep blue with the sun to your back. No breeze to speak of.

Just a few minutes after passing the cabin at the Park boundary we heard our first elk bugle.

Not long after that a helicopter flew over. It was a cargo chopper, with counter-rotating blades. It wasn’t carrying anything. A few minutes later, it came back down the valley. This was the first of what ultimately was five round trips. After the empty run, it had what looked like a telephone pole dangling vertically; something as big as the telephone pole, but carried horizontally; a pallet stacked with large crates; and finally two nets full of smaller items.

This last drop we had a sort of front-row seat. Just before reaching the stringer bridge that crosses the North Inlet, we were stopped by a ranger wearing a fluorescent vest: “You have to wait here a minute.” They’re staging the materials to rebuild the bridge. The work won’t get started until next summer, but they said they were lucky to get helicopter time, given the demands of the Cameron Peak fire.

We chatted with them a bit. One gal had worked on the crew doing the big boardwalk project on the Onahu Creek trail. She said they still had three weeks to go. Another ranger said he’d been to Catherine. I asked if he went from Nanita or up the creek. “Up the creek. Not much deadfall.” Gordon heard “Lots of deadfall.” In any event, it confirmed the “Nanita there, bushwhack back” loop was doable.

Cargo drop

We learned that the first, empty, trip of the helicopter was to hit the landing zone with its prop wash, knock anything loose out of the trees. The landing zone wasn’t a natural occurrence: it looks like they cut down a number of trees.

The bridge is looking pretty sad. There are a couple of patches on it, but it looks like a careless horse could break a leg. The materials they dropped looked to be an upgrade from the existing structure. I believe the current bridge is the second one, built in the 1970s.

Our campsite was just a few more yards up the trail. There are two sites here, we took Pine Marten #2, the higher of the two. Google maps has the location of the campsite wrong. I like the actual location over Google’s misinformation. It’s right on the North Inlet. Very easy access to water, and I find the sound of the rushing water quite pleasant.

We made excellent time, averaging a bit less than two miles per hour. It is a fairly mellow trail; when I day hiked it, I managed two and a half miles an hour. This is the longest stretch of trail in the Park that I can maintain that pace. Having arrived so early, we headed up to Nokoni. Then, depending on how I felt, we could possibly visit Pettingell.

They need to send a crew up this trail with a saw and clear the deadfall that blocks the trail in several places. The first, and biggest, was just below the campsite – we had to navigate that with the big packs.

It took us an hour to get to Nokoni. I decided I’d rather lounge about the lake than hike another two hours and climb a steep 500′ slope. Gordon thought the extra hiking was just the thing and headed off up the slope. I found a spot on the opposite shore and followed his progress. He made much better time than I could. Before he left, he told me he’d signal me from the top to tell me whether he’d continue on down to the lake or abandon the quest. I watched him climb most of the way but lost him just before he got to the top, so I don’t know what he signaled.

Lake Nokoni

Ultimately, he was gone for an hour and a half. He put eyes on the lake but didn’t quite get there. I think I made a sound choice. It would have been more like two hours for me. I might think differently had Gordon made it, but I was comfortable with the day’s effort.

On the way back to camp we ran into a solo hiker. He was wondering if he could make it to Nanita. He was staying well below us, back by Ptarmigan Creek, at either Ptarmigan or Porcupine. Given how far he had to go back, I suggested that going to Nanita might put him in the dark before he got back to his camp. He told us he’d bought a permit for Lost Lake, but due to the Cameron Peak fire, they moved him to Porcupine.

Back to camp at 5:15, we chowed down and chatted and had a beer. It had been a nice, warm day all day, calm, very pleasant. The wispy clouds were gone by mid-afternoon. When the sun went down, it started to cool down fast. Before long, I was wearing nearly everything I brought: long underwear, t-shirt, sweats, hoodie, and the rain jacket on top of all that. A few minutes after eight, I called it quits and climbed into the tent and sleeping bag. It took me a while to get warm.

By the time of my inevitable nocturnal excursion, the quarter moon had set and the stars were shining brightly. I didn’t see the Milky Way but I could see the light pollution from Denver.

Bench Lake

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Before I started this blog I had been posting trip reports to a forum for lovers of Rocky Mountain National Park. This is one of those reports, with only minor edits for clarity.

Hike date: 24 September 2011 — Originally posted: 28 September 2011 – 11:57 AM

Saturday I hiked the North Inlet Trail to Ptarmigan Creek, then off the trail to Bench Lake. Shortly after starting up the trail, I had a bit of discomfort on my right ankle. I have a couple of seasons of hiking in these boots and was a bit surprised that I’d be getting a hot spot there. Not a big deal, though, so I continued. It’s something like six and a half miles to Ptarmigan Creek, and the trail climbs very gently. In spite of my ankle I was making good time, something like 3 miles per hour. By the time I reached the creek I had only encountered 7 other hikers, 3 of whom started at Bear Lake.

I went up and down the trail a few yards either side of the creek looking for anything resembling a trail but didn’t see anything so I just headed up the hill. In the macro sense, navigation is trivial – just stay on the east side of the creek as you climb. It’s a fairly steep climb (for me at least), and I was more concerned with encountering terrain I would be unwilling to descend. I’m a bit of a fraidy-cat when it comes to steep descents, particularly when I’m hiking alone. My general rule is to never go up anything I need to use my hands on because I know I’ll get the heebie jeebies on the way down. Saturday, though, I broke my rule because I have hiked three times this summer where I didn’t make it to my destination and I was so close I didn’t want to turn around.

War Dance Falls are somewhere near the top of the climb. It’s a bit hard to tell where they are exactly, as the creek between the trail and the lake is basically a falls the whole way. I was unable to get a view I liked for a photo.

Bench Lake

I sat for about a half hour and had my picnic lunch before making my descent. I managed to go down pretty much the same way I went up. I was a bit surprised, as in the best places there is just a faint suggestion of a trail. When I got to the steepest bit, where on the way up I recognized I’d have problems, it’s steep enough that my fanny pack was in contact with the ground. I carry two water bottles, one on each side of my pack. At this point, one of the bottles got nudged out of its holder and bounced down the mountain towards the creek. I thought I saw it get lodged between a rock and a tree, but when I got closer I could see that I was mistaken. I lost my bottle. Murphy’s law applies here – I didn’t lose the half empty bottle but the full one. I’d have to ration my water a bit for the 7 mile hike back to the car.

When I got back on the trail my ankle really started bothering me. At one point, I thought I felt moisture there – I thought my blister had popped or torn open. Nothing for it but to continue as best I could. It was painful enough for me to alter my gait a bit. I tried taking longer strides or shorter strides, I tried walking slower and walking faster, but nothing helped. In the end, it really affected how fast I could hike and the same trail I was managing 3mph on the way up I was now doing less than 2mph down.

I made it back to the car with a few sips of water left. When I changed from my boots to my shoes, I expected to see a bit of a mess on my ankle. Much to my surprise, there was no blister. There was a bit of swelling but no redness. I’m guessing now that I got some sort of insect bite. It got red later in the day, and was puffy for another day or so. Now the swelling and redness are gone but I still have a bit of pain. Why couldn’t the damn insect have bitten me a couple inches higher?

Bench Lake is the 44th lake I’ve visited in the park. There are still a few more I can get to on my own, but they’re getting to be longer hikes and farther off the trails. I think I can probably do Nokoni and Nanita on this trail even though they’re quite long for day hikes. But the first seven miles of trail is so flat I think I’m willing to give it a try. Maybe next year.

Bench Lake verdict: It was nice to get there once, but probably not worth the effort a second time.

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Pettingell Lake fail

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Sunday, September 4

Last year, crossing back over the ridge that separates Lake Nokoni from Lake Nanita, I saw what looked to be a fairly well-defined trail crossing the ridge between Lake Nokoni and Pettingell Lake. Having successfully done the 22.2 mile round trip to Nanita and knowing that Pettingell is the same distance, it seemed like I should be able to bag Pettingell.

The weather forecast for Denver predicted a high of 91 with mostly sunny skies and only a slight chance of rain. I probably should have checked the forecast for Grand Lake. Between Granby and Grand Lake the road was wet. I might have thought it had rained in the pre-dawn hours but there was so much standing water it would probably be more accurate to say the rain had just stopped falling. But the rain had stopped, and that’s what counts.

I planned for a 7:30 start, which means leaving the house at 5:30. I was pretty much on schedule, putting boots on the trail at 7:37. Two guys started hiking while I was changing my shoes and I caught them shortly before the first campsite at Summerland. They looked to be traveling oddly light, carrying only a plastic bag containing a couple of rolls of toilet paper. I chatted briefly with them. They spent the night in camp there but managed to forget one important item, thus their early morning trip. They were visiting from Mississippi and had just spent the first of several nights in the park. I expected to see them later in the day as they said they’d be heading to Nanita.

Not long after leaving them at their camp I saw some moose tracks on the trail. I always expect to see moose in these parts but tracks are all I saw. There were these fresh tracks on the trail, still very distinct so I guessed they were put down after the rain stopped. Just moments after seeing these tracks it started raining. Just sprinkles at first, but before long I had to don my rain jacket.

It rained for two hours. It wasn’t a hard rain but enough to cause rivulets of water to run down the trail. Rain drops would hang on the brim of my hat, dance back and forth with my gait for a few steps, then fall to my feet. The rain pattered softly on my hoodie while occasional larger drops falling from the trees made louder plops.

As the morning wore on, I passed several groups of backpackers making their way out. The weather wasn’t exactly conducive to stopping and talking, so we just exchanged greetings. I did ask most of them where they were hiking from; all were in camps along the North Inlet.

It stopped raining after I passed Ptarmigan Creek. About here the trail finally starts gaining some elevation. The first six or seven miles are pretty flat, passing through some wider sections of U-shaped valley where the river meanders in big loops and the occasional pond lies near the trail. After Ptarmigan Creek the trail starts working its way up the side of the valley.

I arrived at the trail junction as quickly as I made it last year. I make a right turn to head to Nokoni whereas most traffic goes on the trail to the left, towards Flattop and Bear Lake. One of these days I’ll have to arrange logistics such that I can hike from Bear Lake to Grand Lake. It’s well over twenty miles, but I no longer have any doubt I’m capable of it.

The roughly two and a half miles of trail from North Inlet Falls to Lake Nokoni is quite the feat of trail making. Last year I didn’t pay particular attention to the trail itself. I took in the views and was always concerned with my progress. More relaxed this time, I couldn’t help but notice how the trail facilitates quick travel.

This is a pack trail, so it is constructed according to whatever codes apply – minimum width, maximum grade, and so on. But the thing that stands out on this section is the absolute absence roots, rocks, and stairs that interfere with your gait. And although I’ve seen many pack trails that have sections that climb four hundred feet in a kilometer, this trail has no steep parts.

But what amazes me about this trail is that it does all this while traversing some incredibly steep terrain. In the mile below Lake Nokoni there are several sections where the trail is literally carved out of the rock. Words and pictures don’t do it justice. These two and a half miles are perhaps the easiest two and a half miles of hiking in the entire park. That, in conjunction with the relative lack of incline on the first six or seven miles make this ten miles of trail easier than many trails half the distance.

I had no sooner stood on the rock shelf along the east side of Lake Nokoni than I heard somebody coming up the trail behind me. It was a solo hiker, a trail runner, and the only person I encountered all day who was older than me. He started where I did, at about eight. His pace was only a couple of minutes per mile faster than mine which was quite the ego boost for me: I’d covered the ten miles in 3:47, or about 2.6 miles per hour.

Now I confess that I forgot to bring a map. I wasn’t concerned, though, because as I said, I saw the trail last year. All I needed to do was find the trail and I’d be on my way. I figured I couldn’t miss it if I just started working my way up the slope. So that’s what I did. The slop turned out to be a bit steeper than I anticipated. I did eventually find a trail of sorts. But it’s loose gravel and I wasn’t happy using it. My footing was much better without the trail. And it’s not really a trail – it fades into nothingness on both ends.

Without a map I was expecting to be able to see the lake when I topped the ridge. So I was a bit disappointed that my target wasn’t in sight. I decided that it must be farther to my left and that I’d need to cross a talus slope. By now it was noon, which is my “bingo” time. I want to be at my destination, or in sight of my destination, by noon. No lake in sight, so I pondered my options.

I could continue, expecting to arrive at the lake within another half hour. That’s not so bad, but it puts my return to the car an hour behind schedule. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still threatening. The only blue sky I could see was a thin ribbon along the divide. The “mostly sunny” forecast looked to be true, if you were east of the divide. Here, it looked like it might rain again. Finally, I’d managed to keep my feet mostly dry until I headed off trail. Once I was walking through grass my pants were wet below the knee and my feet were thoroughly wet. And today I wore my hiking shoes, not the boots. With the boots my feet probably would have stayed dry. And I’d certainly be happier in boots when crossing this talus field. (New rule: wear the boots if the hike goes off trail.)

So I decided to turn around.

No big deal. I can get to Pettingell if I decide I like camping. Or, if I hit the trail at 7:00 instead of 7:40. And wearing boots and carrying a map. (It looks like I didn’t need to cross the talus field after all. That would have been the hard way.)

I cautiously worked my way down the slope back to Nokoni, where I selected a large flat boulder to sit on and eat my lunch. By now the clouds had broken up a little bit, providing alternating sunshine and shadow. I took off my shoes and socks, wrung out the socks, and set them on the rock to dry. But the sunshine was fleeting and a breeze kicked up and my socks never had a chance to dry out. I wasn’t looking forward to hiking ten miles with wet feet.

The weather did clear up quite a bit. Back in the valley, once I got below the lake, I was in sunshine again. The clouds were just hanging around the peaks. About half way back to North Inlet Falls I was finally able to take off my rain jacket for the first time in five hours.

Upper North Inlet valley

Upper North Inlet valley

On the way out I took a couple of short breaks. The Upper North Inlet valley is one of the remotest areas in the park and the steep terrain below Nokoni means the view is often unobstructed by trees. I paused several times to take in this view. I also took a short break at Big Pool to eat some fruit. I was back to the car shortly after five. I was happy to put on dry shoes and socks and surprised that the wet-footed hike out wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable.

Timetable

Up Down
Trailhead 07:37 AM 05:11 PM
Cascade Falls 08:40 AM 04:02 PM
Big Pool 09:09 AM 02:41 PM
Ptarmigan Creek 09:51 AM 02:20 PM
Lake Nokoni 11:24 AM 01:01 PM

Lake Nanita

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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.