Tag Archives: Onahu Creek

Julian Lake

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Having just tried this a month ago, it seemed to me that I might be able to start this blog entry where I dropped out last time. Yeah, right.

Thursday, July 23

The alarm woke me at 5:15. I was out the door by a quarter til. I went over Trail Ridge with the idea I could run both cameras and if traffic was light maybe make a nice video. I stopped at Deer Mountain and mounted the cameras. Traffic was light but what there was, was really slow. Often just fifteen miles an hour. I passed some of them over a double yellow line.

At about Iceberg Lake (or Lava Cliffs, if you prefer), the car was making a funny noise. Not an engine noise, not a transmission noise. I decided it was probably one of the wheelwell inserts and didn’t worry about it. When I parked at the trailhead, I took a quick look. It wasn’t an insert, it was the diffuser. I will need to take it off. I lack the proper wrench. This is not good.

I put boots on trail a few minutes before eight, pretty much the same time as last month. About fifteen minutes in, I met a group of three hikers coming the other way. We exchanged greetings. They said they saw two moose just a few yards up the trail. I kept an eye peeled, but saw no moose.

They’re doing a big construction project just before you reach the first bridge over Onahu Creek. Last month I thought they were nearly done. It looks like it’s going to be a much larger structure than I thought. It’s not a bridge; more of a boardwalk, but on a slope. Maybe a hundred feet long, with a bend. And it needs to be stout enough to handle horses.

I got to the second bridge in just over an hour. I easily found the walking stick from last month and set off up the unimproved trail. Which I lost at the same place as last time. Very quickly, though, my stick broke, getting a foot shorter. I found a replacement, almost identical to the first one. Not long after that, I crossed the creek. None of it looked familiar to me, other than the general chaos of this forest. It was never my intention to cross here; I was thinking I was crossing a tributary. In fact, I had crossed the tributary already but didn’t recognize it because it carried so much less water.

As to carrying water, my boots got that honor in the second grassy meadow of the day. It had rained last night, and everything was wet. The pine needles weren’t too bad, I could avoid them for the most part. But the wet thigh-deep grass I had to cross in that meadow did the trick. The ground was sometimes spongy, sometimes slowly flowing water. My feet got pretty wet. I had three days of that a couple of years ago, just on the other side of Mt. Ida from here.

It was somewhere about now that I started to get a bit discouraged. When I started out this morning, I had no doubt that I’d reach the lake. I thought I knew exactly what I was getting into, but my doubt as to exactly where I was and everything looking different than last time was bothering me. On this hike, when you can follow a game trail it’s a relatively easy walk. But when you lose the trail, the deadfall puts you into “a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.” I was finding it to be a most challenging hike, both physically and mentally.

Having crossed the river early, I came across unique terrain for this hike: a talus field. No giant boulders, not too steep. I decided this was the path of least resistance and a welcome change of pace. Halfway up I realized it was the talus field where I ate my lunch last time. My doubts evaporated.

I reached this point fifteen minutes earlier than last month. It’s always easier the second time, even if only a little. I followed a game trail through the next set of trees, about a hundred yards, without significant deadfall, and arrived at the edge of a large meadow, perhaps a third of a mile long and five hundred feet wide in spots. By skirting the edge of it, I was able to avoid getting any wetter.

A partial view of the largest meadow. Taken from near the north end, facing east.

From a distance, it didn’t look like a good plan to just go up the lake’s outlet stream; obviously too wet. I came across a well-traveled game trail that kept to higher, firmer ground. No maze of deadfall here. The trees were sparser, the gound rockier. The trail skirts three or four more smaller meadows, each thick with elephant’s heads.

Elephant’s heads

When I say I “dropped out” on my last hike here, I mean I paid the tuition but didn’t get the diploma. The misery of the deadfall is, by far, the worst part of this hike. That’s the tuition. The marshy meadows in that last mile and Julian Lake itself are the payoff, the diploma.

The final approach

Foster’s description of the lake says it’s above treeline, but there are trees above it. She also warns of some nasty willow on the way. Following the game trail, I encountered no willow. The trail deposited me onto the shore of the lake, right next to the outlet. The better view looked to be from the east, so I crossed the outlet and looked for a nice rock to sit on. I couldn’t help but notice all the moose prints in the mud near the outlet. I didn’t spot any moose today, but obviously they’re in the neighborhood.

Julian Lake, presided over by Mt. Ida (with the weather) and Chief Cheley Peak

Foster says an alternate route would be to climb the saddle between Julian and Timber Lake. She says to “descend southeast over steep scree.” From my seat, it was clearly too steep for this kid. So if I want to return here, it’s back to the “demanding bushwhack.”

Timber Lake is on the other side of the saddle near the right

I was hoping to sit in the sun, take off my boots, and dry my feet and socks. As it was, there was only a small patch of clear blue sky to the west and overhead only the bottoms of gray clouds. I took off the boots and did manage to get the socks almost dry. But the boots never stood a chance, so feet and socks were wet again as soon as I put the boots back on.

I stayed only a short while. It started sprinkling, and the breeze picked up. I decided the only way to stay warm would be to put on the raincoat or to start hiking. I started hiking. The clear blue spot in the west was getting bigger; any rain would be light and short-lived. Or so I told myself. Fifteen minutes later, after a solitary drum-roll of thunder, I donned the raincoat and put up the hood. It wasn’t a hard rain; it didn’t totally obstruct the vision of the surrounding mountains, but I was happy to put on the jacket.

It rained for not quite an hour. I can’t help but wonder if the weather is always bad around Mt. Ida. That’s been the case for me. My day hike attempt at Gorge Lakes featured a thunderstorm that was the start of the 2013 floods. On my Gorge Lakes backpacking trip it rained every day and my feet were always wet.

Passing back through the largest meadow, I saw two deer about halfway across. They had spotted me first, and from this distance they might as well have been statues. They stared at me the whole time they were in my sight, rooted to their places.

I went down from my dropout spot the same way as last time. Or so I intended. I lost the trail in the dead zone and struggled. I found short, faint game trails, littered with a bit of poo, so I was sort of on the right track, but these all petered out. I’d like to see how elk make it through here. Maybe the place is such a mess that there are no game trails through this bit.

I kept losing the trail (or, more correctly, not finding the trail) at each meadow crossing. More demanding bushwhack. I found the trail for the last time, returned to the main trail (where I dropped my stick), and crossed the bridge a good twenty minutes before I expected to. I refilled my water, ate a plum, and resumed the hike.

A few minutes before reaching the trailhead, I encountered only the second hikers I’d seen all day, this time a couple. They asked if it was my Lotus in the lot and said “at least you’ll have a fun drive home!” I replied, “Maybe not” and asked if they had any pliers. They couldn’t help. She liked seeing my car. She drives a Fiat Abarth. She says with what folks say about Fiats, she’s afraid to drive it in the mountains. I told her she should enjoy her car.

I will say that the demanding bushwhack kept my mind off my diffuser problem. But now it was the immediate problem and It was now very much on my mind.

The diffuser was being held on by six small screws, all along the back edge. The large screws that do the heavy lifting were gone, and so the diffuser hung down in front with the rear panel acting as a hinge. It’s now not so much a diffuser as a scoop that opens when you’re driving. On the road, I quickly learned that the scoop will deploy all the way to the pavement at about 18 miles per hour.

I limped into Grand Lake to search for somebody with some tools. I stopped at the ATV rental place. All she had was a pair of channel-lock pliers. I gave them a shot. After some wrestling and a bit of cursing, I had half the screws out and all but one of the other half loosened. But I was beginning to round off the head of that last bugger. When the ATV rental lady closed up, she suggested I try a Polaris place down the road a couple of miles. So that’s what I did.

Just after getting back on US 34 (at 18 mph, with 4-way flashers on), a couple in a Geo Tracker pulled over to help me. They’d seen me on the ground in front of the ATV place when they were on their way to the Conoco station. When I passed that station, they hurried to come after me. He asked if there was anything he could do to help. I said what I really needed was an 8mm socket. He said, “I have one!”

We got the thing off, and it fits in the passenger seat (on a towel) and the top even fits. Which is a good thing, as I would surely be encountering rain. I was very happy for their help. They told me they couldn’t bear to see me crawling along the shoulder. She has a Corvette and was curious about the car. I said she could sit in the driver’s seat if she wanted; she declined. But she did take a couple of pictures.

The drive home was uneventful. The diffuser didn’t obscure my right side mirror, but there was very little visibility out that window. It rained a little. There wasn’t much traffic and I was home before eight.

Onahu Creek

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Monday, June 22

Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy. This time on “What Did I Forget?”: mosquito repellent and a map.

If I were to follow my usual naming convention, this one would be “Julian Lake FAIL” instead of “Onahu Creek”. It’s good to have goals, but just about any day in the Park is a good day, even if I don’t get to where I originally wanted to go. So for today’s hike, let’s just call it a reconnaissance instead of a fail.

The Foster guide tells us there are two routes to Julian Lake: one is via Timber Lake and the other is bushwhacking up Onahu Creek. The Timber Lake route would be a five-mile hike to Timber Lake and then basically go straight up 700′ and down 700′ in less than a mile. I’m not a big fan of descending steep slopes, so I figured the bushwhack route would be my best bet.

To get there this way, start at the Onahu Creek trailhead and hike about three miles to Onahu Bridge, which is where the trail crosses Onahu Creek for the second time. Then leave the trail to follow the creek. Near Julian Lake, there’s a confluence of the lake’s outlet stream with Onahu Creek. Follow the stream on the left and climb the last 500′ or so to reach the lake. Sounds simple, no?

I really only had two concerns. First, the lake sits above 11,000′ and it’s still June and there may be too much snow. But looking at the map/satellite/aerial photos it appears that the last few hundred feet of climbing are up a gully that has no trees and has southern exposure. I took the microspikes with me just in case. And, second, I might have to ford a stream if I can’t find a better way to cross. My bruised foot is still pretty tender. It’s not a problem at all with a shoe or boot on, but barefoot on stones in a stream might cause some real discomfort. I figured I’d “burn that bridge when I try to cross it”.

This is the second time I’ve been on this trail. The first time, I only went to the first crossing of Onahu Creek, then headed off-trail to Chickaree Lake.

The first bridge is about half way to the second, both in distance and in elevation gain. Immediately after crossing the first bridge, the trail climbs pretty steeply. It’s a pack trail. I’m pretty sure they have “building codes” for pack trails. All over the park I can find pack trails that climb as steeply as 400′ in a kilometer. I’m sure the code doesn’t mix units like that, but this is one of those 400’/kilometer climbs. After that, the trail levels off for the rest of the way to the second bridge.

My decision here was, do I go up the left side, or the right side? From my map study, I recalled that there are two streams that come in from the left and one from the right. But going up the right side, I’d have to cross Onahu Creek itself, so that’s two crossings either way. I picked the right side and dove into the forest.

Almost immediately I found myself in a maze of deadfall. No, “maze” doesn’t do it justice. There were a surprising number of downed trees, trunks in every direction, sometimes stacked three high. I soon came to a small trunk, only about ten feet long. The top half looked like it might make a nice walking stick, so I broke it in half. I broke it exactly where I intended, but the fatter (discard) half bounced up and clobbered me in the neck. As I said, sometimes I’m my own worst enemy.

After quite some time working through the deadfall forest, I found a game trail that looked promising, but it veered off in the wrong direction, so back into the thick of it, although it wasn’t nearly as bad as before. After a while, I came across a fairly well-traveled game trail. It was much easier going until it dumped me out on the border of what looked like a grassy meadow. It was a marsh. I managed to make my way across without getting wet feet, but I saw no game trail on the other side.

Back into the mess. My strategy was to keep the creek fairly near. Not necessarily always in sight, but always audible. In some of the steeper sections, the creek came down some nice cascades. The nasty deadfall wasn’t a constant thing, but was quite common. The worst of it was on the steeper slopes.

The mosquitoes were the worst I’ve ever dealt with. They weren’t big, the sort that would carry off small children. But there were millions of them. Swarms of them. I tried not to stop more often than necessary. It has been my experience that they’re worse in the woods than in the clearings, but not today. I stopped to take very few pictures and every time I stopped to take a sip of water, three or four would land on each arm while others would buzz my ears and go for the back of my neck. At one point there were three lined up on my arm, a few inches apart. I rubbed my hand up my arm, killed the mosquitoes and left three smears of my own blood.

I easily crossed the tributary that came in from the right and figured I didn’t have that far to go, perhaps another mile. The terrain became steep again, and I came across another nice cascade. At the top of this, I was once again standing on the edge of a swampy meadow. The creek flowed right through it, rather than beside it, so it meandered. The channel was narrow, deep, and swift. Narrow for the amount of water; too wide for me to vault it. In this meadow/marsh, it looked like there was a confluence here. I was expecting a steep grassy slope after the confluence, but there was a talus field over there. Perhaps I’m misremembering the map. But this looked like where I needed to cross Onahu Creek and follow the other stream to the lake.

The deceptive ox-bow

I found a crossing, then went about following the other stream. I had been faked out: it was a meander loop that was now cut off from the main stream. It made a loop to nowhere. It was now a bit after eleven. I hadn’t really stood still for two hours and I was hungry. I decided I’d find a flat rock in the talus, in the sun, and hope that the mosquitoes weren’t so bad. So that’s what I did. And the mosquitoes weren’t a problem at all.

It wasn’t as sunny as I was hoping, and it was a bit on the cool side. After sitting for a while, it was cool enough that I donned my rain jacket. It occurred to me that I could wear it on the hike back to the trail to help with the mosquitoes. I could even put the hood up to protect my neck and ears. I’d be hot and sweaty, but I figured that was a fair trade.

I relaxed for an hour. The view was not dramatic but pleasant. After I ate, I spent a few minutes looking at the terrain. My phone said I my elevation was 10,607′, and the lake is at about 11,100′. Is the lake above the gully to the left? It doesn’t look like what I was expecting from the aerial images. I thought about how disappointed I’d be to learn that I was really close but gave up.

The view up the canyon. The correct route is very near the right of the photo.

I was quite happy using the walking stick. Perhaps I need to rethink my attitude about using poles. One consideration is that I nearly walked away from my stick twice, once when I started back down, once right after my first stream crossing. I can easily see myself losing my poles.

On the way out I was a bit more successful following the game trails. I found myself on a section that I avoided on the way up, thinking I didn’t like the direction. It was a very easy trail, nearly a straight line with almost no deadfall. Whenever the game trail looked to be forking, I tried to pick the route that looked better traveled. Or had more elk poo!

Not exactly a cairn, but serves the same purpose

In the steeper parts, I lost the game trail but I always managed to get back to it. I had less success crossing the marshes. The only time I found the trail on the opposite side was crossing the last of them. This was the “heavily-traveled” game trail from the morning. But it turns out that it isn’t a game trail, it’s an unimproved park trail. If I’d have gone another 20 yards after crossing the bridge this morning, I’d have seen it and saved myself a bit of trouble.

Now back on the main trail, I tossed my walking stick into the underbrush and headed back to the car. This trail really doesn’t go anywhere, and it has a small parking lot, so I wasn’t expecting to see any other hikers. Very quickly, two groups of hikers passed me in the other direction, one group of four, the other of seven. Then I caught up to a group of eight heading my way. I was reluctant to pass them, as I was planning on refilling my water at the first bridge. I’d just have to pass them again.

But they saw me and stopped to let me by. I hustled down to the bridge and refilled my bottle. I’m not sure how long the UV light stays on, but it seems like ages. So the big group was going even slower than I thought, as I was back on my way before they showed up. Near the parking lot, I passed one more group, who were just hitting the trail. So that’s four groups totaling more than twenty people. In the parking lot, there was my car and two others. Seems to me there should have been more cars.

My last decision of the day was which way to return home. I decided that, even though it’ll take a bit longer, I’d go over Trail Ridge Road. I’m still curious about the timed entry passes being 60% of normal, so I wanted to see how bad the traffic was.

I was pleasantly surprised. The parking lot at the Alpine Visitors Center was less than half full. All the pulloffs between there and Rainbow Curve had empty spots. I never had a clear road in front of me, but we generally went the speed limit over that stretch. We caught slower traffic at Rainbow Curve, but it wasn’t as slow as I ordinarily see at that time of day.

Postscript

I have more than a dozen mosquito bites on each arm. One bite has another bite right on top of it. But it could have been worse: I could have been wearing shorts. I’m quite confident that wearing the jacket on the way out, although not exactly comfortable, was a wise decision.

It turns out I made it to within a mile of the lake. I had not much more than another hundred yards of forest to bushwhack through, then cross another marsh and finally climb to the lake. I’m thinking that if I try again, in August perhaps, when the ground will be drier, I should be able to make it. Hit the trail a few minutes earlier, follow the game trails better, and (of course) remember the mosquito repellent!