Steps in the Right Direction: Colorado Lost Creek Canyon Backpacking Day 1

Time to dig out your hiking boots, scrounge around for your best hiking socks. But this year we are going big! That's right it is our first official Backpack hiking trip. Think about putting together enough food for four days with a bear canister, sleeping accommodations, clothing, water treatment gadgets, headlamp....hmmm and whatever else you think you might need for to live for four days. By the time the backpack is packed, it is 40 pounds. We are in the Lost Creek Wilderness in Colorado to learn how to be "Backpack" hikers. We are hiking with Pat Wischmann who spent her career of teaching students and other PE teachers "outdoor adventure". What a treat to be able to spend time learning from the best as well as sharing stories, and experiences with her. Best hikes, bucket list hikes, and learning experiences to name a few topics. We spent the days and nights in easy conversations listening, chatting, asking questions, laughing and chuckling at the stories we have collected through the years.

Due to the late snow arrival in Colorado, the mountain tops are snow capped and beautiful to look at. Although it is beautiful to look at, it is not very fun to hike through with a heavy backpack. Pat made several hikes to try to locate a trail we could hike without battling downed trees and snow. We decided to hike a lower elevation loop hike down by Fairplay, Colorado. Lost Creek Canyon. Lost Creek takes its name from a creek that repeatedly disappears underground and into rock piles. At one time in history, people intended on damming up the creek in a water diversion project. The idea was to divert the water to Denver. The problem was the creek just kept disappearing!

The drive to the trailhead takes three hours. The last 50 minutes of the drive is on a dirt road that looks more like a squiggle of dirt scratched into the hillside. The road is heavily wash boarded, one car with wide, with an occasional two car widths, bypass to allow for passing Mostly it is wide enough for one car to drive while bouncing along on the washboard. At about 35 minutes into the 50-minute drive, we find a semi parked on a spaghetti corner of the road. I'm not sure how the semi got that far out there, but he was busy fixing something on the bottom side of his trailer. Most likely changing the wash from all of the wash boardings...We managed to squeeze past.

We arrive at the trailhead to find the parking lot is full. We manage to carve out two parking spots. It is around noon as we change our boots, and don our packs for our outing. We shoot a couple of pictures, register for the backcountry experience and hit the trail.

Setting off with a 40 pound pack feels much different than a 15 pound pack. Right off you notice balance will be a critical focus. No way do I want to trip and fall with this pack on...We settle in and begin the schooling of learning how to backpack hike. The pace is slow and steady. After 3 and half miles we arrive at a historical site. It has running water, a great flat place to camp. It is early in the the afternoon, but we decide to stop and set up our first camp. Being first time at capturing water, setting up camp, cooking supper...we needed a little extra time to get our routine put together. Pat wanted us to be clear that there are three things we were looking for : Water, Shelter and Food. Could we find close reliable water, was there a place to put a tent, and could we cook there. After putting up our tents, Pat schooled us on setting up the dinner event. "try and get everything in order, so that when you sit down to make supper, you don't have to get up and retrieve something." This little lesson will take some practice, we had to get up to retrieve many things. For supper we had jambalaya that we made with our dehydrator. Just give it a soak in the water, bring to a boil, simmer and eat... Very tasty!!! After dinner we walked up to the ruins. We found a big iron pump that was bolted into the mountain. To bad those men worked so hard getting that pump hauled back into the mountain only to find out the water source was not reliable.

Came back to camp and went to bed. It took us about 30 minutes inside the tent to get everything in it's correct spot. Pat was in her tent about 10 feet away... I am sure she was laughing at us trying to get organized.

Sad note, our Big Agnes "moon-glo" tent was a no-glow tent. The tent has led light strip in the dome., operated by three AAA batteries. It worked at home, but by the time we set up the tent in the real environment... it was no longer working. We had to dig up the head lamps. Oh well, guess I now have lots of extra batteries in my back pack...