Craig Park

Description

Elevation: - 11,900' approximate maximum elevation
Location - South of Grant in Colorado.

Trip Report(s)

Located in the Lost Creek Wilderness Area, easily accessible from Denver up Highway 287, our sojourn in the spring of 1999(?) through Craig Park was one of those trips that looked good on the map, but due to a variety of factors turned into something less than optimal on the ground. On the other hand, as soon as we were back in the car it was the classic "That was fun!" and "Let's do it again!" :-)

We drove up Friday night, taking the Lost Park Road off of 287 and car camping south of the Ben Tyler trailhead (9,800') on Rock Creek Road. Saturday morning we got up and headed up the Ben Tyler Trail. The trail up the south-exposed slopes was easy, and in a few hours we had quickly reached the top, a wide open tundra area just above timberline at 11,900'. Mt. Blaine (12,303') and the north and south Twin Cone Peaks (12,323' and 12,265', respectively) were just to our west. Stretched out to the southeast was Craig Park, a long, flat-bottomed valley running between the Platte River and Kenosha mountain ranges. We planned on backpacking down the valley to the intersection with the Brookside McCurdy trail, then taking that back to Lost Park Road and walking back to the car. That was the plan...

As we headed down towards the valley, the first problem with our plan became apparent. The snow in the valley had recently melted, and it was very boggy. As we trudged along, mud sucking at our feet, we realized we were in for a real slog, since our itinerary had us covering about 12 miles that day. And for the rest of the day it never got better. It was simply long, wet, muddy, boggy drudgery. With the coming of the afternoon rainstorm we had reached the trail intersection we were looking for, and decided it was time to camp. But where? The valley bottom was too swampy, so we headed up towards the slopes to the south, hoping to find a flat place to pitch the tent. Eventually we changed our criteria to "kind of flat" and got the tent set up at just shy of the trees at 11,000'. We were exhausted, and it was all we could do to wait out the rain, cook dinner, and collapse into our bags, laying on about a 10° slope. In fact, the slope was enough that I kept sliding/rolling into Mike, until he turned around and put his head down at the (very small) foot of the tent. It is hard to sleep with your head pointing downhill and tent fabric just an inch or so from your face, but he was so tired it didn't matter, and we were both soon in a deep, coma-like sleep.

The next day we followed the Brookside McCurdy trail south up through the north-exposed slopes towards a pass at about 11,700'. This is where the real epic began. Under the trees on the shaded north-exposed slopes there was still lots of wet, soft snow. We had not brought snow shoes because we were going for an ultralight, ultrafast (we hoped!) 25 mile trek in two days. So we ended up "post holing" as we climbed, basically sinking up to our knees with every step. Combined with going uphill, the effort was grueling. Finally reaching the pass we took a break and rested. Then it was downhill (not bad now because we were on south-exposed slopes again) until we reached the road. At that point it should have been an easy hike down the road and out, but we were so tired from the morning's fun in the snow that it became a long, hot epic. Especially for me, since as part of my "ultralight" experiment I was using a daypack to carry 28 lbs., and it looked like a bloated tick ready to pop! It did not carry well, and I was constantly trying to readjust the various straps, with no relief. By the time we reached the car in early afternoon, we were both wiped. And immediately ready to try it again. We must be deranged! Photos follow.

Photos

Some of the photos are panoramas, so expand your browser or scroll to the right.

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