Emigrant Wilderness – Cherry Creek – July 1 - 3, 2010
Some trips just don’t pan out the way you planned and this was one of those. It was a decent snow year and I knew that there was a chance that we were going to encounter some snow and of greater concern was the runoff and trying to cross any creeks. It was the first trip of the season, which meant my usual backpacking suspect Steve was present and my friend Andrew also joined us. I had been given a tip awhile back by a friend of mine about a great off-trail lake called Rosasco. The plan was to hike into Rosasco on day 1 and then do an off-trail hike visiting many great lakes in the area….that was the plan anyways. As the time approached for the trip I kept my eye on the snow level reports and knew that if we got to our intended destination it would be through a bit of snow.
We started off at the Bell Meadow trailhead. I’ve never gone out of this trailhead and it is quite nice. I think it’s best to go early season, as it is a popular starting place for horses. Somehow someone forgot to bring water to the trailhead…a sign of experience….so we knew the season was off to a great start. We blew off that little mishap and headed off. There are appropriately enough lots of Aspens as you head in and in we headed until Steve asked me if I had the permit…..DOH! This provided a wonderful opportunity for Steve to burn off some excess energy and he retrieved the permit. Clearly there are some issues with this group…and oh yeah I forgot to mention there was also a temporarily missing hat. Thankfully after the permit was obtained the next few hours of the hike were relatively unexciting. We had the trail to ourselves, which is always the great part of being out early and later in the season. Around 7400 feet we started to run into snow…just patches here and there though. There were some nice wildflowers – penstemon, some lupine. Then we arrived at one of our major junctions where Cherry Cree k meets Buck Meadow Creek. When we got the edge of the creek we just stood and stared…it was basically a raging inferno of water. I was undaunted…well slightly daunted but determined to search for a crossing spot. Searched I did…which meant going downstream to the west. It became clear though unless we wanted to get all of our gear wet and play roulette with early season runoff that we weren’t getting across. Given how early it was we had the area to ourselves and there were plenty of really nice camping spots so we setup camp and broke out the happy hour goods! We had a great evening and a beautiful sunset.
The next morning we decided that we would do a day hike up to Jewelry Lake. I’d figured that we’d run into a bit of snow but that we’d just go as far as we could. We followed the creek to the east and ran into Piute Lake where we saw some campers. Their plans had been foiled as well and they were making the best of things. We got onto the trail and headed to Gem Lake and hit pretty solid snow around 8000 feet. We did a bit of post holing…always a good time and then hit Gem Lake. The lake was beautiful and there were no people there…quite amazing…since I have been there when the tents are almost wall-to-wall. We saw a huge trout swimming in a little outlet of the lake. We decided to push a litter further and go Jewlery Lake where we had stunning views into x canyon and again there were no hikers there either. We decided to turn around and head back and on our return we saw a few people that were headed into Gem Lake. On our way back we went to an overlook point which had wonderful vistas and I went off shutterbugging while Andrew and Steve chilled out and enjoyed the views. We did a little off-trail jaunt back down to our camp and it was time for our favorite time of the day - Happy Hour! We had another wonderful evening with a nice warm campfire and then tucked in for the night.
The following day we had a relatively quiet hike out except for my constant sniffling…did I mention I had a cold and my poorly executed plan to carry my camera equipment that included 2 lenses and a tripod. The first trip definitely helps to brush some of the cobwebs off the packing brain. On our way out we started to see a lot of folks that were headed in including lots of horses. For the life of me I can’t figure out where we stopped for food and beer but most certainly there was beer. Although we didn’t get to where we wanted to go it was a really nice hike and a great place to camp.
Some trips just don’t pan out the way you planned and this was one of those. It was a decent snow year and I knew that there was a chance that we were going to encounter some snow and of greater concern was the runoff and trying to cross any creeks. It was the first trip of the season, which meant my usual backpacking suspect Steve was present and my friend Andrew also joined us. I had been given a tip awhile back by a friend of mine about a great off-trail lake called Rosasco. The plan was to hike into Rosasco on day 1 and then do an off-trail hike visiting many great lakes in the area….that was the plan anyways. As the time approached for the trip I kept my eye on the snow level reports and knew that if we got to our intended destination it would be through a bit of snow.
We started off at the Bell Meadow trailhead. I’ve never gone out of this trailhead and it is quite nice. I think it’s best to go early season, as it is a popular starting place for horses. Somehow someone forgot to bring water to the trailhead…a sign of experience….so we knew the season was off to a great start. We blew off that little mishap and headed off. There are appropriately enough lots of Aspens as you head in and in we headed until Steve asked me if I had the permit…..DOH! This provided a wonderful opportunity for Steve to burn off some excess energy and he retrieved the permit. Clearly there are some issues with this group…and oh yeah I forgot to mention there was also a temporarily missing hat. Thankfully after the permit was obtained the next few hours of the hike were relatively unexciting. We had the trail to ourselves, which is always the great part of being out early and later in the season. Around 7400 feet we started to run into snow…just patches here and there though. There were some nice wildflowers – penstemon, some lupine. Then we arrived at one of our major junctions where Cherry Cree k meets Buck Meadow Creek. When we got the edge of the creek we just stood and stared…it was basically a raging inferno of water. I was undaunted…well slightly daunted but determined to search for a crossing spot. Searched I did…which meant going downstream to the west. It became clear though unless we wanted to get all of our gear wet and play roulette with early season runoff that we weren’t getting across. Given how early it was we had the area to ourselves and there were plenty of really nice camping spots so we setup camp and broke out the happy hour goods! We had a great evening and a beautiful sunset.
The next morning we decided that we would do a day hike up to Jewelry Lake. I’d figured that we’d run into a bit of snow but that we’d just go as far as we could. We followed the creek to the east and ran into Piute Lake where we saw some campers. Their plans had been foiled as well and they were making the best of things. We got onto the trail and headed to Gem Lake and hit pretty solid snow around 8000 feet. We did a bit of post holing…always a good time and then hit Gem Lake. The lake was beautiful and there were no people there…quite amazing…since I have been there when the tents are almost wall-to-wall. We saw a huge trout swimming in a little outlet of the lake. We decided to push a litter further and go Jewlery Lake where we had stunning views into x canyon and again there were no hikers there either. We decided to turn around and head back and on our return we saw a few people that were headed into Gem Lake. On our way back we went to an overlook point which had wonderful vistas and I went off shutterbugging while Andrew and Steve chilled out and enjoyed the views. We did a little off-trail jaunt back down to our camp and it was time for our favorite time of the day - Happy Hour! We had another wonderful evening with a nice warm campfire and then tucked in for the night.
The following day we had a relatively quiet hike out except for my constant sniffling…did I mention I had a cold and my poorly executed plan to carry my camera equipment that included 2 lenses and a tripod. The first trip definitely helps to brush some of the cobwebs off the packing brain. On our way out we started to see a lot of folks that were headed in including lots of horses. For the life of me I can’t figure out where we stopped for food and beer but most certainly there was beer. Although we didn’t get to where we wanted to go it was a really nice hike and a great place to camp.
Comments