Last week Renee and I were on vacation. We had planned a three day backpack trip up to Indian Peaks with the dogs. We had never been on the Hessie trailhead, but we were looking forward to the 15 mile loop.

The plan was Devil’s Thumb Lake first night, up over the divide and back down to King Lake the second night and then back down the third day.

The weather forecast wasn’t looking real great for the next few days, but you have to take what you can get. We left the trailhead at 12:30PM; first stop was to be Devil’s Thumbs Lake approximately 6 miles for the first day.

We were hoping to be at Devil's Thumb Lake at about 4:00PM, but several factors prevented that. Cooper kept losing one of his boots it seemed like every 5 minutes, it was quickly apparent that we had not had big heavy packs on our backs in a year and weather.

As time passed we could see the weather moving in quickly. Our plans quickly changed to just try to make it to Jasper Lake and get setup before the rains hit. It seemed like it was taking us forever. It was spitting rain off and on, but still was tolerable.

Finally at about 3:00PM; it started pouring down rain. We went as far as we could, but finally the dogs were soaked and it didn’t look like it was going to let up at all. Just below tree line we found a small grove of trees for shelter with a perfect spot for the tent. We decided just to set up camp there for the night and decide where to go the next day.

It took us about 45 minutes to get everything setup and in the tent. I decided to head up to Jasper Lake and filter some water since we were getting low. It turned out we were about fifteen minutes from the lake where we had stopped. The weather up at the lake was windy, cold and snowing. Everything was getting socked in and I was quickly in the clouds.

By the time I got back to camp it had started to let up some. About 5:30PM it let up enough so we could get out of the tent and get things dried out some, including the dogs! We had a little Crown Royal and made something to eat and hung out for a bit.

Finally at about 7:00Pm it socked in again and started raining, sleeting and snowing. Learning our lesson from last year, we hung the food in a tree so as not to attract bears and then we loaded the dogs into the tent for the night. Then we heard 5 or 10 loud cracks of thunder like I’ve never heard before. It sounded like cannons going off right next to our tent.

Throughout the night the wind was blowing and it rained steadily with waves of sleet coming in about every half hour or so. We were comfortable enough and the dogs were tired and just happy to be there.

I woke up the next morning and it wasn’t to bad out. I looked up at the divide though and it was getting darker and darker and it was socking in again. We decided to go ahead and get packed up before it got to bad. About halfway through the process it started raining again and then finally turning to just snow.

We decided at that point to just head on back. It was apparent that the weather wasn’t going to get any better and the thought of another couple of nights hanging out in a tent with a couple of wet dogs, one of them being a large sponge, didn’t seem like fun.

By the time we reached the car, there was a good six inches of wet, sloppy snow on the ground. It looked like we made the right decision. As the week went on, we know we made the right decision, because it didn’t clear up again until Thursday. At least this year there were no bears, moose or mountain lions to deal with.

With a few days off, Renee and I decided to take a couple of days and head up to Lost Lake in the Mummy Range in Rocky Mountain National Park. Our plan was to start in Pingree Park, dropping into Rocky Mountain National Park from the Northern Boundary via Stormy Peaks Pass. We would spend the second day climbing Icefield Pass and Rowe Peak (13,404’) and come out on the third day at the Dunraven trail head near Glenn Haven.  A twenty plus mile trip plus climbing, worked into three days.

Sunday morning our friend Ryan dropped us off at the Stormy Peaks trailhead. As we started out late in the morning, the skies weren’t looking to favorable for our ten mile jaunt up and over the mountain. As we neared timberline, the wind was blowing hard and the clouds were closing in with thunder and lightning. As we came through the trees onto the open tundra, we were greeted with two or three hundred Elk bugling and rutting. It was quite a site to see. As we got closer to the herd, they started to move up and over Stormy Peaks in what seemed to be a never ending stream of elk.

As we reached the top of the pass, the storms had moved around us, staying mostly to the north, so we could slow our pace a bit. We worked our way up to Lost Lake arriving around 5:00 PM. We got camp setup just in time for a few small rain showers to come through. Not long after setting up the tent, I just happened to look up to see a moose staring at me about forty feet away.  I calmly told Renee there was a moose, but she didn’t believe me (not that I would ever make something like that up). Then she came over to look and was in shock. The moose hereafter referred to as Martha just stood there and looked at us for a while and went about her business eating and doing whatever moose do. She didn’t have any little ones with her, so we weren’t too worried about her.

We poured a drink of mountain kool-aid (Crown Royal) and went down to the lake to sit and watch “Martha”, our new moose friend and relax after a long day on the trail. As evening turned to darkness, we made our way back to camp for some dinner. As we retired to the tent for the night, we made the bold move of deciding not to hang our food and just take our chances that a critter wouldn’t make a meal of it.

I drifted off to sleep about nine o’clock that evening, although the wind was still blowing hard and a few small rain showers, so I was in and out of sleep most of the night. About 3:00AM Renee woke me up having to make a pit stop and wanted me to go out with her. She was a bit nervous, knowing that Martha was still out the somewhere. As we were out relieving ourselves, I had that feeling like I was being watched. I looked around with my headlamp on, but didn’t see anything, so I let it go. As we lay in the tent trying to fall back to sleep, at the same time we both heard something very strange. It was coming from quite a distance away and moving closer and closer. Whatever it was, it was not very happy!! At this point we finally realized that it was a bear. It was snorting and growling and stomping the ground and coming closer and closer. As the bear made its way to just outside our tent, it was very loud at this point and you could hear and feel him pounding his front legs on the ground letting us know what we first suspected – HE REALLY WASN’T HAPPY!!

We sat in the tent wondering, okay this is a predicament, what now? Our food was outside, which was good, but he seemed to have no interest in that. All I could think of to do was to turn on the light in the tent hoping that this would somehow detour him, why I don’t know, but at this point that’s all we got. So I turn on the light, and it seemed to work. We sat there still and listened as he finally starting working his way down towards the lake, grunting and snorting the whole way. As the sounds faded away into the night, we both breathed a huge sigh of relief, but still being cautiously optimistic. After about 30 minutes, I was convinced that he wasn’t coming back and was actually able to fall asleep again.

 I woke up about 6:30AM that morning as it started to get light. I then realized that he must not have returned. Not five minutes later I heard hooves stomping around the tent, thinking that Martha had come for a visit. I emerged from the tent 15 minutes later with no signs of Martha and luckily no signs of our earlier visitor that night. We were quite happy just to make it through the night. I fired up the JetBoil and made us some apple cider. We made our way down to the lake to drink our cider and ponder if we were going to try to climb Rowe Peak, given the fact neither one of us got much sleep the night before. As we sit there, I looked across the lake and Martha emerged from the trees to say good morning. We watched her for a while and pondered the situation. We came to the conclusion that it was a late start to climb, and with neither of us getting much sleep that night, that it wouldn’t be a good idea. Then to expand on that thought, I decided that if we stay another night, it’s most likely that the bear would be showing up again and we had already pushed our luck for one trip, or so we thought. So we decided to pack up and head on down to Dunraven. As we packed up camp, we knew we made the right decision when even the squirrel in the tree above us thought we should leave and made it known by bombarding us with pine cones. Just salt on the wound!!

We made our way down the mountain, we ran into a couple from Illinois that were working up to Lost Lake via the North Boundary Trail Head for the night. We mentioned to them that they would probably run into Martha our moose friend and not to worry about her to much and without trying to alarm them to much, told them about our encounter with the bear. Their eyes widened a bit, but at least they knew ahead of time what to expect.

As we wondered our way down the trail, we were both feeling pretty beat, turning our twenty plus mile trip in three days into two. As we get closer and closer to the car, I’m thinking beer and burgers and wanting to get that heavy pack off my back. From what I could make of what Renee was saying under her breath, I’m sure that’s what she was thinking as well!!

Not to worry though, our adventure wasn’t over just yet. About a mile and a half from The Dunraven trail head as we were coming up on the Cheley Ranch, I heard a rustling in the brush from across the river. I just happened to catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. I wasn’t exactly sure what I saw, but I had a good idea what it was. I didn’t think too much of it and we just pushed on. A few hundred yards down the trail I heard a rustling in the brush again and caught a better glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. It was a long blonde tail whisking off into the brush. At about the same time, I just happed to look down to see the fresh tracks of a mountain lion. It was at this point I realized what I had just seen. I didn’t want to say anything to Renee and alarm her, but she saw the fresh cat tracks at the same time. So I informed her that I saw the cat on the other side of the river following us for a while. How long I don’t know, but at least a quarter of a mile or so. Without panic we kept a brisk pace to the trail head, keeping our eyes open for anything that moved. Fortunately, that was the last that we saw of him (that we know of), but I’m sure that he had his eye on us whether we knew it or not.

Back at the car, we were both relieved to just be done with it. All in all, a fun and exciting trip, but happy to be back. After years of backcountry travel both by ourselves and with the dogs, both summer and mostly winter, we have never encountered what we did on this trip. In hind sight, we were glad we didn’t have the dogs with us on this trip. They are no strangers to moose, but I would imagine they could piss off a bear pretty good. Not that he needed much more of a reason to be pissed off!! Looking back on it, the only thing I could think of that we didn’t run into on this trip was a deer, go figure.

Lessoned learned – the next day I was sporting a brand new XL sized canister of bear spray for our trip up into Wild Basin to scout out a new ice climbing area.

Cirque Meadows is one of our all-time favorite places to go when we just want to get away for a bit, a nice easy hike with spectacular beauty. This was our first over night outing of the season and the first for the dogs in quite some time. They were quite anxious to see the backpacks come out; because they knew this time they were going to get to go.

After two miles, the trail turns west heading up into the cirque. With record snowfalls in most of the mountains this year, we weren’t surprised to have to break out the snowshoes. There was still three to four feet of snow along this section. As we passed the Mummy pass trail head, the signs were still mostly buried in snow.

As we arrived in the meadow, it was still the middle of winter up there. The weather was gorgeous, but everything still frozen. One of my goals on this trip was to scout several snow climbs in the area that I’ve been eyeing for several years. Having done research, I have not been able to come up with any information or knowledge of these climbs being done. It was one of my friends Ryan and mine goals was to give this area a try this year.

We setup the tent and of course, the first thing Sami has to do is hop in and act pathetic. Although, to her defense, she doesn’t have a lot of hair, so we cut her some slack in the winter. Cooper was in heaven though, he just loves being out, no matter what the weather might be.

We had a pretty uneventful night, weather was nice, and the dogs actually slept most of the night without waking us up. Normally Sami just sits up in the tent and looks down at you letting you know that she really miserable and really misses the couch! It doesn’t matter the time of year for her, she loves to get out but loves even more returning to her domain.

Ice climbing season is over, so we needed to get the dogs out. We decided to take an overnight trip up to Montgomery Pass – a popular backcountry skiing and snowshoeing destination in the winter. The pass lies just to the East of Cameron Pass up the Poudre Canyon. We snowshoe up this way quite a bit in the winter and always thought it would be a great overnight trip.

We loaded up the 4Runner with gear and dogs and got out of town around 11:00AM. It’s a short 1.5 mile hike, so there wasn’t any need to get there to soon. As usual when we head up the canyon, the dogs were excited. The always seem to know exactly where we are going.

We started up the trail, across Hwy 14 from the Zimmerman Lake trailhead. The dogs were so happy to be out, except Sammi had that look on her face that she knew she wasn’t going to be sleeping on her comfy warm couch that night. Cooper was just happy to be a dog!

 There is still a lot of snow up there. About halfway up, I stepped and I went all the way up to my crotch in snow – snowshoes and all. I was stuck wallowing around with a heavy pack on trying to dig my way out of the snow.

We made it up to the pass and setup camp. The dogs were happy to roam free and play in the snow. When we went to sleep, Sammi just sat up in the tent sulking and saying bad things under her breath, wanting sympathy. Granted, she doesn’t have much hair, but she generally tries to climb into anything, including sleeping bags to keep warm.

Late that night Renee and I woke up to the sound of coyotes in the distance trying to lure the dogs out to play. The dogs of course wanted out of the tent to see what these creatures were that were calling them. We finally got the dogs settled down and got back to sleep.

The next morning, the weather was gorgeous, so we climbed a couple of the peaks along the ridge. We were surprised to find that looking at the tracks in the snow; the coyotes had made a complete circle around us that night, going way up high on the slopes around us and checking us out.

We made it back down, packed up camp and headed down the mountain. It was a short weekend trip, but great to get out and away from town for a bit and get the dogs some much needed exercise.