Conundrum Creek Hot Springs, Aspen CO



Long view up towards the Hot Springs
Yes, we are going to walk as far as you can see and then some more!

Reststop anyone?

Let's start with the facts
9 hours
17 miles
Starting elevation 8,757 feet. Highest elevation 11,289 feet
4,993 feet gained 4,987 feet lost
Total miles : 23.5

As a side bar I will mention that we drove by the Aspen airport and it was wing to wing full with rows and rows of private jets all in for the holiday weekend. I guess they have their own air force here In Aspen... Or perhaps they sent out invitations and included some line of BYOJ.

Being the holiday time, we were worried about getting to the trail head early as parking is limited. If you do not get a parking spot then you have to park an additional 1.1 miles away. That is not something that we want to add to today's hike. Fortunately, when we arrive at the trailhead parking lot there are lots of spots available. We get ourselves packed up and start smartly off to read the trail head sign. Again we giggle at the Rest Stops bags that are free at the trail head. The whole idea being you pack out EVERYTHING that you carry in. With all the people that visit this hot springs there can be a lot of bunny hole digging going on! Kathi poses for a picture with her new "rest stop in a bag" and then we head off to the next sign.

There is another sign posted about seven feet down the trail which read: Caution ahead at hot springs: bear, cougar, coyotes, vultures, and ravens eating on cattle carcasses. A second warning regarding contamination of the hot springs with cryptosporidium and e-coli. Hmmm what kind of warning is this. Another car pulls into the trail head parking lot. Kathi goes back to check to see what info he might have. He said if the rangers did not think it was safe they would close the trail down. Hmmm good point. We start hiking at 7:45.

 

 

Attention, better read this first

Kathi and I review wild animal sighting procedures. Cougar or Mountain lion - stop moving and look big. Bear - stop moving, look big, no eye contact. Do not run away from either. Hmm, who ever wrote the "do not run" rule either worked in an elementary school or most likely never met a bear or cougar while standing out in the open. I bet they were sitting behind a desk! Running seems like the most logical idea, well, until you remember you look more like a retrieving game for the predator... I have a special rule that I would like to add -- No pictures. Kathi and I met a bear once while vacationing in Glacier National Park and she wanted to stop to take pictures. So there will be no photo opportunities. We break out our "yo bear, go away bear" loud scarey voices.

The first 6 miles of this trail we did last year. We hiked out to the Silver Dollar Pond and stopped there. Not far from this point there was a tough creek crossing that would have involved hanging by a rope while crossing waist deep water. That did not sound very safe, so we turned back. This year with it being much drier we set our sights on getting up to see the hot springs, which were 8.5 miles from the trailhead. The elevation gain of this hike seemed like a good idea for a second day of hiking. Well it seemed like a good idea until mile 7. Then it seemed more like a really cooky idea! Perhaps going 17 miles might have been too large to attempt on day two....

Penny crosses creek this year, notice water level in creek.

Kathi crosses same creek crossing during snow melt from last year.

If you can remember back to last years trip up Conundrum Creek it is named for the fact that many a miner came back up into the area in hopes of striking it rich. The surrounding mountains and creek carried signs of gold, but no one ever found any. Thus the name Conundrum. Part of the trail still shows signs of the wagon wheels the miners used in getting to and from their stake. I am sure they must have used two wheeled wagons as the trail is so rough that keeping four wheels intact and still on the wagon would have been very hard. The trail at times is soft on your feet as the pine needles have fallen through the years and left this nice loamy soil. If this loamy soil was placed all in a row it might measure one mile, perhaps less. The rest of the 8.5 miles of this hike seems to have rocks the sizes of kitchen sinks, basketballs, and softballs. The kitchen sink rocks you step on or over, the softball size you try to avoid because they roll, the basketball size ones seem to cause the most trouble. All basketball rocks seem to jump up and try to trip you. I swear they are alive!

I am pretty confident that the entire time we are hiking, we trek up 200 feet of elevation, only to loose 100 feet of elevation which we had just attained. So the hike is very rolling. But in true form we have many things to look at. We saw delphiniums as tall as Kathi, lupine, geraniums, columbine, red trumpet fire flowers, and fish swimming in the beaver ponds. There were uncountable groves of Aspen trees along the way. Aspens are very pretty to watch as the leaves just flitter in the breeze. Oh, and the pine, hmm the smells are rich and clean. 

Peeking into the Ranger Cabin which is full of poo

After a great amount of effort we arrive at the beginning of the backpack camping sites at the hot springs. We have more uphill to go as the hot springs are still another quarter mile up the hill. We stop at the abandoned ranger cabin and shoot a couple of pics. All around the cabin there are piles and piles of poo. The cabin itself smelled very strong of poo. The poo in the cabin is deep. We stop and analyze the poo. Looks like there is grass in the poo, so I am not thinking this is from bear. Bear do not eat grass, running people yes, but not grass. It seems like horse poo but the shape is not quite right. Hmmm. I've seen piles like this before. What could have created all of this poo? Hah, and the rangers were worried about humans carrying out their poo.


 Coming around the final bend to the pools we see there are two people sunning themselves at the edge of the hot spring. Maybe I should say they are sunning all of themselves. You see, the hot springs are a clothing optional pool. These two do not seem hindered by the idea of funky things like e coli, nope, maybe a sun burn, but not e coli contamination. Kathi and I consider skinny dipping in the hot springs. Just one thing stopping us. Kathi thinks our little 16 square inch fast drying towel we use to dry our feet if we have to remove our boots when crossing a stream, will not be quite large enough to dry us off. Good point! Well I guess we will not be able to use the pool!

Kathi and I pass by the two sunbathers. Well, since the trail goes right next to the pool, we do too, yes it does seem a bit strange to walk past two naked people sunbathing. We head to a spot where there is a guy sitting on an overlook of the whole valley. We join him so we too can overlook the valley. The whole valley... if I were naming the overlook I might choose something like Peeping Tom's overlook. From here nothing is out of sight so to speak.

Hot Tub for four

We make casual greeting and chit chat with the friendly overlook guy. We take a few pictures of the valley and pools. In our casual chatter with overlook guy we hear a story of what has all happened in the area. The whole story about the poo, the carcasses, and the mission statement for national wilderness areas is to let nature happen.

The story as told by overlook guy goes something like this: at the end of last grazing season a rancher had misplaced 29 head of beef cattle. He looked and looked for them, even sent a helicopter out twice to see if the cattle could be spotted. Well the beef cattle found their way up and over a mountain pass and down to the hot springs. The cattle thinking it was getting a bit chilly to be out and about thought the hot springs area was a great winter hideaway.

The smaller yearlings hung out in the abandoned ranger cabin, but the larger adult cattle could not fit through the door so they would have to tuck themselves into the willow thickets to try and block the winter winds. By the end of winter all the cattle had either perished or disappeared. Only 12 of the 29 cattle were found in the hot springs area, 6 calves had died in the cabin and had to be dragged out. Some of the larger cattle were laying about the hot springs. 17 cattle were not found. I suspect the missing cattle fell over the edge of the canyon walls that are not far from the ranger cabin.

Since this land is in a Wilderness area, the land management rules say let nature take its course. The dead cattle were spread apart, but really left in the area and the people using the area will be warned. So thus we have contaminated water and a hot bed of predator animals having dinner... Nice.

This story also goes a long way to explain all of the poo up at the cabin. The cattle used it as a winter get away. No wonder that poo looked familiar...

By now two more people have joined in the hot spring skinny dipping contest. Overlook guy is telling us how on the weekends the hot springs can have a hundred people all in various stages of getting in and out of the pools. I try to imagine this scene. I certainly hope it is not 100 naked people all milling about!

We see the clouds gathering and we decide we should go. We meander over and shoot a pic of what is left of one beef cow and then start to head on out. As we are hiking we notice the clouds really gathering up into rain. We do our fast foot exit. Only this time we spend 5 miles of fast footing before we get ahead of the storm enough in order to slow down.

Remains of cow carcas

I swear this is where those darn basketball size rocks really do a number on your exit plan. Kathi and I expend way to much energy fast footing. By the time we have two miles to go we are just down to a nice slow walk. 17 miles is a long way to walk and consider the realm of the enormity of the world. At this point I am wondering why we thought this would be a good idea for a second day hike. I am also wondering how it most have been very, very had to live in a timewithout cars...The rain manages to stay just on our heals and we make it back to the car with only sprinkles on us.

Note to self: 17 miles on day two is too many miles!