DAY 2
I woke up at 7:00 am knowing that unless I got a fire going Laura would not want to get up. So I got up and with one match was able to get a blazing fire going by the time Laura got up at 7:45. Our thermometer said that it was 49 degrees when Laura got up and I thought that it was significantly warmer than when I got up so I am thinking we were in the 30 degrees over the night. Regardless we both stayed fairly warm and got a decent nights rest. This is what it looked like in the morning.
This is just east of where we slept
We had a delicious mug of oatmeal to start the day and then we were off hiking by 9:00am. We knew we had about 3 miles to the top of the pass but we were not ready for how beautiful of a hike it was going to be.
This view was constantly to our left as we rounded around this valley. It was huge. I think it was probably a mile to a mile and half wide.
We crossed about 20 other streams just like this one that were running down into the valley. It was all run off from the melting snow. We had a couple of close calls but we didn't take any spills into the creeks.
After we went through about a mile and half of going through trees and little breaks into beautiful mountain meadows we started breaking out of the trees above tree line. We are at about 11,500 ft here.
You can see Eccles pass in the upper left hand corner of the
picture. It was spectacular when we got above the tree line.
We ran into two crystal clear mountain lakes. Behind the lake on the left you can see Red Buffalo Pass. That trails runs down into Vail. Behind the lake on the right you can see Eccles pass. This trails runs down into Frisco.
This is what it looked like from the top of the pass. This is the path we took to get to the pass. This was the most spectacular part of the hike.
This is looking down the other side of the pass. We could hear a waterfall but we couldn't see it very well until we got down a little further but then we saw...
This picture doesn't do it justice. We were probably a mile away from this on the other side of the valley and it looked gorgeous.
We walked through this meadow for a mile or two. It was hot but it was pretty awesome.
This is where our pictures start thinning out a little bit. We were getting tired but we also wanted to get as far as possible before stopping for the night. We ended up going for another 4 or 5 miles and decided to stop at a less than ideal location, but it had a nice rock to sit on and enjoy the afternoon.
We sat out on this rock for almost two hours. We pumped water (tried to), whittled our sticks, boiled water, talked about life, and enjoyed the day.
By four o'clock Laura got up to go to the bathroom and while she was gone I found a tick crawling up my leg. Laura came back and said that she had also found two ticks on her. We were already dreading all of the mosquitoes that night and the next morning. (There already were a lot and it was the middle of the day) We decided to pack up camp and hike about a mile to the a lake that would provide a better place to camp.
They didn't call it Lily Pad lake for nothing. We decided that we didn't want to drink this water, so we moved decided to hike another mile to the next creek up the trail. By this time it is about 5:00 pm and we are getting real tired of hiking.
We don't have many more pictures of the day because we weren't in the picture taking mood. We got to where we thought the next creek should be and couldn't find a good place to stay. Laura mentioned that she thought there was a campground at the end of the trail which was probably another mile or so up. I looked at the map and sure enough there was a triangle at the end of the trail. So we decided to hike there.
Laura started talking to me about Turkish food and how great it was and somehow we got onto the wrong trail. We quickly realized that the trail had changed and that we were going up hill when we should be going down. We only got about 1/4 or 1/3 of a mile off track but that seem like a really long time when you are getting as tired as we were. We got back on the trail and headed to the campground. By this time our feet and legs were numb and so it didn't hurt too bad to hike.
We got to the end of the trail and started looking for the campground but we couldn't find it. I looked again at the map and the little triangle didn't mean campground it meant trailhead. It is about 6:30 by this time and we are both really tired of hiking. I am thinking that we have done about 9 or 10 miles to this point. Now we are surrounded by cabins and roads and we have no campground to stay at and our car is still 2 and half miles away. I was very impressed with Laura and her composure at this point. I was getting frustrated but she remain calm and just said "well, let's hike to the car." She also had the idea of leaving our packs up in the trees and then driving back to get them with the car. I thought this was a great idea so we hike up into the trees and hid our packs. I found the keys to the car in my pack and was getting ready to go when I realized that it was probably going to rain before we got back and so I decided to cover our packs with some garbage backs that we brought.
This is the last picture we took as I was putting the garbage bags on the packs. You can't see it here but I put the keys down on the ground as I put the bags on.
Laura and I were feeling light on our feet as we got on the road and started walking towards our car. We asked a few people how to get back to the trailhead where our car was. (We even talked to a bus driver that was very disgruntled and told us that the trailhead had been shut down and they weren't letting anyone up there since midnight last night. We still don't know what he was talking about) The last quarter of a mile before the car Laura got very light on her feet and was happier than I had seen her the whole trip. We were both talking about going to Pizza Hut and drinking lots of water and eating a ton of pizza. The car was a glorious sight. Lonny had never looked so good. We get to the car and I reach down into my pocket to get the keys and I didn't't feel anything. I reach into the next pocket and didn't feel anything there also. Laura noticed what I was doing and had sudden break down of emotion. I couldn't tell if she was laughing, crying or cursing. On cue the rain clouds opened up and it began raining. This was a terrible feeling.
We decided that we were going hitch hike back up to our packs and try and hitch hike back down. Luckily, we had passed two women on a walk earlier and we re-passed them as we were walking back. They were very kind gave us a ride back to the packs and then back to our car.
We went to Wendy's had a junior bacon cheeseburger and a frosty and then we headed home. We were a little disappointed that we didn't camp out the second night. (but not that disappointed) Overall, it was very fun.
This is just east of where we slept
We had a delicious mug of oatmeal to start the day and then we were off hiking by 9:00am. We knew we had about 3 miles to the top of the pass but we were not ready for how beautiful of a hike it was going to be.
This view was constantly to our left as we rounded around this valley. It was huge. I think it was probably a mile to a mile and half wide.
We crossed about 20 other streams just like this one that were running down into the valley. It was all run off from the melting snow. We had a couple of close calls but we didn't take any spills into the creeks.After we went through about a mile and half of going through trees and little breaks into beautiful mountain meadows we started breaking out of the trees above tree line. We are at about 11,500 ft here.
You can see Eccles pass in the upper left hand corner of thepicture. It was spectacular when we got above the tree line.
We ran into two crystal clear mountain lakes. Behind the lake on the left you can see Red Buffalo Pass. That trails runs down into Vail. Behind the lake on the right you can see Eccles pass. This trails runs down into Frisco.
This is what it looked like from the top of the pass. This is the path we took to get to the pass. This was the most spectacular part of the hike.
This is looking down the other side of the pass. We could hear a waterfall but we couldn't see it very well until we got down a little further but then we saw...
This picture doesn't do it justice. We were probably a mile away from this on the other side of the valley and it looked gorgeous.
We walked through this meadow for a mile or two. It was hot but it was pretty awesome.
This is where our pictures start thinning out a little bit. We were getting tired but we also wanted to get as far as possible before stopping for the night. We ended up going for another 4 or 5 miles and decided to stop at a less than ideal location, but it had a nice rock to sit on and enjoy the afternoon.
We sat out on this rock for almost two hours. We pumped water (tried to), whittled our sticks, boiled water, talked about life, and enjoyed the day.
By four o'clock Laura got up to go to the bathroom and while she was gone I found a tick crawling up my leg. Laura came back and said that she had also found two ticks on her. We were already dreading all of the mosquitoes that night and the next morning. (There already were a lot and it was the middle of the day) We decided to pack up camp and hike about a mile to the a lake that would provide a better place to camp.
They didn't call it Lily Pad lake for nothing. We decided that we didn't want to drink this water, so we moved decided to hike another mile to the next creek up the trail. By this time it is about 5:00 pm and we are getting real tired of hiking.
We don't have many more pictures of the day because we weren't in the picture taking mood. We got to where we thought the next creek should be and couldn't find a good place to stay. Laura mentioned that she thought there was a campground at the end of the trail which was probably another mile or so up. I looked at the map and sure enough there was a triangle at the end of the trail. So we decided to hike there.
Laura started talking to me about Turkish food and how great it was and somehow we got onto the wrong trail. We quickly realized that the trail had changed and that we were going up hill when we should be going down. We only got about 1/4 or 1/3 of a mile off track but that seem like a really long time when you are getting as tired as we were. We got back on the trail and headed to the campground. By this time our feet and legs were numb and so it didn't hurt too bad to hike.
We got to the end of the trail and started looking for the campground but we couldn't find it. I looked again at the map and the little triangle didn't mean campground it meant trailhead. It is about 6:30 by this time and we are both really tired of hiking. I am thinking that we have done about 9 or 10 miles to this point. Now we are surrounded by cabins and roads and we have no campground to stay at and our car is still 2 and half miles away. I was very impressed with Laura and her composure at this point. I was getting frustrated but she remain calm and just said "well, let's hike to the car." She also had the idea of leaving our packs up in the trees and then driving back to get them with the car. I thought this was a great idea so we hike up into the trees and hid our packs. I found the keys to the car in my pack and was getting ready to go when I realized that it was probably going to rain before we got back and so I decided to cover our packs with some garbage backs that we brought.
This is the last picture we took as I was putting the garbage bags on the packs. You can't see it here but I put the keys down on the ground as I put the bags on. Laura and I were feeling light on our feet as we got on the road and started walking towards our car. We asked a few people how to get back to the trailhead where our car was. (We even talked to a bus driver that was very disgruntled and told us that the trailhead had been shut down and they weren't letting anyone up there since midnight last night. We still don't know what he was talking about) The last quarter of a mile before the car Laura got very light on her feet and was happier than I had seen her the whole trip. We were both talking about going to Pizza Hut and drinking lots of water and eating a ton of pizza. The car was a glorious sight. Lonny had never looked so good. We get to the car and I reach down into my pocket to get the keys and I didn't't feel anything. I reach into the next pocket and didn't feel anything there also. Laura noticed what I was doing and had sudden break down of emotion. I couldn't tell if she was laughing, crying or cursing. On cue the rain clouds opened up and it began raining. This was a terrible feeling.
We decided that we were going hitch hike back up to our packs and try and hitch hike back down. Luckily, we had passed two women on a walk earlier and we re-passed them as we were walking back. They were very kind gave us a ride back to the packs and then back to our car.
We went to Wendy's had a junior bacon cheeseburger and a frosty and then we headed home. We were a little disappointed that we didn't camp out the second night. (but not that disappointed) Overall, it was very fun.
