August 21, 2022
Hello again friends and family! What has happened to the time this summer?? Almost the end of August already – wow. I hope it’s been a good summer for everyone. We certainly have enjoyed it. We recently spent a couple of weeks in Lake City, Colorado. It’s been on our list of places to go for a few years. It’s in southwest Colorado, in the San Juan mountains, but on the eastern side of the San Juans – we have been going to the western side of the San Juans (Priest Gulch, Telluride, Ridgeway, Ouray) for the last few years. So we worked in a visit to Lake City this year, and we’re glad we did.
Lake City is not somewhere you just “swing by” for a visit. It’s out of the way, not on the way to anything else. Their marketing slogan is that it’s “the most remote place in the contiguous 48 states”. I’m not so sure about that, but it is pretty remote. We like remote. And we were at a campground that was a few miles out of town, in a beautiful setting, with a couple of lakes, mountains all around, and we had a great spot deep in the woods. Perfect. The campground was accessed by a dirt/gravel road. We didn’t know this before hand – and we happened to arrive on a day when they were repairing the road from washout from recent rains – they were spreading fresh dirt/gravel/oil mixture and we had to drive through it on our way in. Left a mess on the truck and RV that Steve is still working on rubbing out. Let’s just say that Steve was a little unhappy with the road on the day of arrival – he was wondering if I had lost my mind when booking us at such a place. But we soon realized it was a great location and we settled in.
So you guys know we like to hike. It’s our favorite thing to do. And these past few years, I have been learning more about hiking in the San Juan mountains since we spend so much time there, and, someday when we get our house built, we’ll be living in the San Juans. I found these 2 books a couple of years ago, featuring day hikes around Telluride, Ouray, Silverton and Lake City. I’ve been reading these books, marking hikes I think we want to do, and spending the winter time in Ohio dreaming of these hikes. Both books provide a lot of detail about each hike, it’s length, difficulty, terrain, etc. They also provide driving directions to the trailhead, and describe what type of vehicle is needed to reach the trailhead: car, SUV or 4×4.
Of course I have a story to tell you about this! I have a hike picked out – Handies Peak, via American Basin. Handies Peak is a 14’r. 14,028 feet to be exact. We’ve never done a 14’r before. I’ve decided this one will be the first! All descriptions said it was one of the easiest 14’rs in Colorado. Only 6 miles round trip, from parking lot. Only 2,800 feet of elevation gain (hike starts at about 11, 300). The people who wrote the book I was using as my guide were a couple in their late 60s. They rated it as moderately strenuous. Said needed a SUV to reach the trailhead, not a 4×4. The trailhead was about 12 miles from our campground, on the same road. How easy is that?? Of course we can do it!
Well. First, we couldn’t reach the trailhead in our truck. We set out one morning to go do the big hike. I’m so excited, I’ve been waiting for this day! About 5 miles from our campground the road goes from the gravel/dirt road into a “jeep road”. It’s part of the Alpine Loop, which is a jeep road that goes over a couple of mountain passes and you can get to Silverton over the mountains on this jeep road. BUT, I had carefully researched, and the trailhead to Handies Peak was BEFORE the road got really gnarly and was accessible only to 4×4 vehicles. Or so I thought. At about 5.1 miles in, about 7 miles to go, the road became impossible for us. Totally a “off road jeep” road – boulders, holes, narrow, steep drop offs. We have to turn around. Our truck is absolutely the wrong type of vehicle for these kinds of roads. We are extra wide (a dually), and extra long (long bed truck). Our truck is perfect for pulling our big, heavy 5th wheel. It is absolutely the wrong vehicle for these types of roads. You need a short wheel bed, high clearance jeep or, most people were using Polaris RZR 4×4 off road vehicles.
So we turn around, no hike up Handies Peak for us that day. I’d like to say I was understanding and that I took the no-go into stride and rolled with the change. But, I would be lying. I pouted, I was in tears, I was mad at the book authors for describing the road as passable by a SUV and not needing a 4×4. Maybe that was true in the past, I don’t know, but for sure, the road was not safe for us in our truck. Steve was really unhappy to find himself suddenly on a narrow, rocky road and having to figure out how to turn around without falling off the cliff. He managed, and back home we went.
The good news is that our campground had a Jeep Wrangler 4×4 available for rent! So we rented it a couple days later, and off we went for our Handies Peak adventure. Wow. It would be safe to say we’re not big fans of Jeeping. Some people love it, and Lake City is a destination for lots of folks with Jeeps or the RZR 4x4s or other OHVs. There’s tons of jeep roads through the mountains and folks drive them all day in those vehicles. It took us 1.5 hours to drive the 12 miles from our campground to the trailhead. It was a beautiful drive. It was a scary drive. It was exhausting. And, we did not think it would take that long to get there, so we didn’t start out as early as we should have, to allow time to do the hike and get back down the mountain before the almost daily rain storms.
But we were there! So exciting! A couple, I would guess in their 60s, were returning to their van, having just finished the hike as we arrived (it was 10:00 am). They had slept at the trailhead so they could get an early start. They said they completed the hike in 4 hours. We’re thinking we’ll be able to do it in 5 hours, plenty of time to get the jeep back by 5:00 when it’s due.
I know this is a long story, sorry! You know how I am. I should have told you to go get a cup of tea at the beginning of this tale. Here’s the shortcut to the ending. We didn’t make it to the top. I couldn’t do it. Steve and Gerry were doing great, no problem. I couldn’t breathe. I had to stop frequently to catch my breath. At 13,000 feet I had to turn around. 1 mile and 1,028 feet of elevation to go, but I couldn’t do it. I tried to get Steve to go without me. There was a pretty lake I could sit by and wait. But he didn’t want to go on without me, and we were getting worried about time. It took us 3 hours to get to the 13,000 point. It would take at least another hour for him to get to the summit and back to me, likely longer. As it was, it took us another 2 hours to get back down. So 5 hours, only made it to 13,000 feet. How did those people do the whole thing in 4 hours? And they were old like us! And they didn’t even seem tired when we saw them. We passed young children with their grandparents on the trail, they all had made it to the top. One little boy said to us: “I’m 11. I just did it. I think you can too.” But not me. At least not on that day. I hope to get to try again someday.
But the hike was simply amazing – beautiful in every direction. All above the tree line, views forever. I have lots of pictures below for you!
We enjoyed our stay in Lake City. We’ll go back again some day for sure. We saw a mama moose and her baby one evening (picture included below). We got in a few really nice hikes. I learned a lot about the access roads to some of these “must do” hikes I have been reading about. It’s all good, and life is indeed good!
Lots of pictures for you:
Handies Peak pictures, and a video here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/sHMD87CqypRWwbKr6
Lake City and area here: