Moose!: A Cow and Bull Story

I Hopped a tardy Amtrak out to Denver this past weekend for a 26-mile hike with my good buddy Joel, whom I know through friends and bicycle touring. Joel is a long-time backpacker, and a former Eagle Scout with loads of experience. I've been wanting to transition from day hiking to backpacking and thru-hiking, bike touring's pedestrian analog. Joel has bike-packed across the country many times as well, so I figured he'd have a lot to teach me. This was to be my introduction to an extended hike into wilderness and I was both eager and anxious—wanting the chance to experience true wilderness without a net, yet a bit concerned whether I had the mettle to carry a stuffed-to-the-gills 75 liter bag up substantial elevation for 8 miles at a stretch. 

Oh, did I mention the bull moose and cow!? (More on that later.)

One reason I wanted to explore backpacking is that I soon hope to hike the Grand Canyon R2R2R (rim to rim to rim) with my brother Jon. We plan on hiking from the south rim (South Kaibab Trail)  to the north rim (north Kaibab Trail) and back up to the south rim (Bright Angel Trail), 42 miles and 12,000 feet of elevation gain. That will require camping three or four nights. That in turn requires a carrying whole host of crap on one's back, not the lumbar pack, two liters of water, and some power bars from my last hike to the floor. This trip will require a serious backpack, and an ability to haul 40 pounds of gear up 7,000 steep feet. So towards that end, I've been slowly equipping myself with both the gear and experience needed for such a trip, especially important considering my 6.3 decades on this orb.

Joel's cool 30-year-old Isuzu Trooper is just that, quite a trooper and still purring like a kitten, and she provided the needed clearance for the rocky road leading up to the trailhead.

In this case, high friends in high places.

The Collegiate Wilderness is about 2 hours southwest of Denver—20 miles outside of Leadville, elevation 10,200, almost a thousand feet higher than Quito, Ecuador

This backpacking trip proved to be rather ambitious considering I had never really backpacked before. We did decide to hike in to our site, day hike the summit (actually an alpine lake called Silver King Lake), camp a second night, and then hike out the third day.

Great weather the whole trip, temps in the 60s and 70s during the day; great sleeping weather at night, even pitched without the rain fly. And oh my, we still have stars in the heavens.

Mr. Thayer, the tolerant rancher whose property we cross and park on, is more than reasonable to charge a nominal access fee. His system is used primarily to keep track of license plates and vehicles. Pretty sure he's losing money on the parking lot/access road upkeep, however. I hope he's getting an assist from the forest service.

The trail starts out with a sandy, gradual climb, but becomes rocky and steeper once we leave Mr. Thayer's property and enter the San Isabel National Forest.

The Collegiate Wilderness, so called because of the Collegiate Peaks, nine fourteeners named after colleges, the tallest being Mount Harvard. We would only be climbing to around 13,000 feet (12,931 feet) on this trip.

Climbing done for the day, we have a little lunch at this campsite before hiking through the meadow and descending to our own campsite. This particular campsite is at the intersection of our trail (Pine Creek) and the 486 mile long Colorado Trail.

My new Osprey Xenith 75 pack. I think I'm in love. More on that later.

The climb up to the meadow is only about four-and-a-half miles and 1,500 feet of elevation gain.

The meadow, with an impressive beaver dam pond. The beavers are responsible for creating habitats for many species of insect and animal, and the little buggers are prodigious landscapers as well.

Our destination, ahead, to the left, and up.

An old log cabin from the early years of the last century. This cabin was occupied years ago when it was on private property. The roof has since collapsed, with no upkeep from the forest service. The cabin was rented by a young dental school dropout from Minnesota a couple of decades ago who fixed it up and lived there for five years before perishing in an avalanche on Mount Harvard. Shades of Jon Krakauer's great book Into the Wild.

Still a great place for a respite.

The only marker for our trail to our camping spot is this quartz outcropping, our trail fades to the left.

Camp trailhead is 7.3 miles in.

Our camping spot is a further third of a mile, down a slope across Pine Creek. After crossing the creek, only experience and intuition leads one to our little secluded patch of Eden.

View from my tent, 14,000-foot Mount Missouri in the background, I believe.

Getting ready, coffee in hand, for our 2,700-foot, 11-mile round trip day hike up to Silver King Lake.

Well, the coffee was a little too strong.

Pine Creek.

Mount Harvard, as bloated as its endowment.

The alpine meadow where we would later see moose. 

Panorama of a couple of the Collegiate Peaks.

Poseur primate, in the wild.

Our destination lay between these two peaks.

One of the Twin Lakes, more like ponds, really.

Mount Harvard, the tallest of the Collegiate Peaks at 14,421, the third highest peak in the Rockies and Colorado, and the fourth highest mountain in the contiguous United States.

Silver King Lake, our destination at 12,931 feet.

Rustic shelter provided a great place to have lunch and take in the views.

Sunning the dogs and having lunch.

Two miles per hour is well below my hiking pace of 3-4 MPH, but I don't usually hike with 40 pounds of gear on my back.

View from our lunch spot and whence we came.

Finally, moose!: bull and cow. They were about two hundred yards from our trail, big suckers. Unfortunately, I left my little Canon G12 at home or I could have got a much sharper picture than this iPhone SE shot. Joel spotted this couple, no easy trick as the trail was rocky and required our attention. Joel said this was the first time he'd seen moose up there in his twelve trips to the area over several decades. Such majestic creatures and much more deserving of this wilderness than we.

Eagle-eyed Eagle Scout Holtz in action.

The notorious pine beetle has yet to inundate this area. The continuing climate catastrophe will only exacerbate these bug crises.

Pine Creek.

Back at camp and prepared for the mosquitoes, which were thick as fog. However, they were wee and produced little in the way of enduring itch. 

I put the rain cover on the tent for when we were away on our day hike, and left it on for the predicted 30-some degree temps that night.

And yes, those are Crocs on my feet. While I wouldn't be caught dead wearing these things in public, they have proved (and not just by me) to be the perfect, light weight camping slip-ons.

Joel's amusement at my Even Naturals mosquito head net quickly turned to jealousy. Ten bucks well spent.

The bridge across Pine Creek to our camp site. A little tricky with a top-heavy pack.

One last glance back at our wilderness, practically devoid of that pernicious invasive species of animal known as Homo sapiens sapiens. Stop with that sapiens business already. Homo not-so sapiens sapiens is much more apt.

Pine Creek is pristine and supplied all our water. We did filter it as a precaution, but didn't feel the need to spoil it's crisp, cool taste with iodine tablets.

Beaver dam.

Reluctant hike down the final leg.

View from the parking lot. Great to get away from people and the news, fake and otherwise, during these fraught times. Backpacking is truly an elixir for sanity.