Off Trail in the Indian Peaks Wilderness
This year, our annual New Zealand friends trip kept us in Colorado and brought the Kiwi crew to us. As the local CO crew, Grady, Nate, and I were super excited to have our friends in CO. Sadly, Adam couldn’t make the trip this year - but we decided to show Zach and McCall our part of the rocky mountains. To start off our CO showcase we opted for some excellent local cuisine on our way from the airport to the mountains and fueled up with some chick-fil-a sandwiches - the meal of champions.
We selected our route because we were following in the footsteps of our ultralight hiking idol, Andrew Skurka, who did a traverse in this area that came highly recommended. We all like to jokingly compare our base weights of our not so ultra-light packs, idolizing the hiking comfort of those who sacrifice their base camp comfort. We definitely opt for the base camp comfort with plenty of tasty food, some Jim Beam to join the party in the evenings, the other comforts of a doubled-up sleeping pad and more. Zach and McCall even have the infamous backcountry bed, a true luxury in the backcountry that they keep encouraging us to try - we’ll have to see if we cave at some point.
We camped near the trailhead the first night - spending time checking to make sure we weren’t doubling up on any supplies in our not-so-ultralight fashion, and making sandwiches to enjoy for lunch on the first day. We thought we’d treat ourselves given it was a long day and would be a welcome change of texture before we swapped over to some of our to-go backpacker meals for the rest of the journey.
The hike started strong, but we were quickly enveloped by tons of mosquitos. Our highlight tour of Colorado was not starting off as we expected - especially because we said, “Colorado is so dry, we don’t usually have bugs”. By that point, we were really looking forward to the sandwiches to refuel us for the afternoon journey. Little did we realize, McCall and I had crafted mega sandwiches. They were HUGE. Lots of complaining ensued, especially from us ladies, because we always practice Leave No Trace (LNT) principles and if we didn’t eat it all - we’d have to pack it out. We tried to pawn off some of our *pounds* of lunch meat to the guys, but that didn’t go over well either. Nate finally took one for the team and housed the rest of the sandwiches. We owed him big time.
Our day was not going according to plan at that point and the trend continued. The rain began mid-afternoon on the first day and when it picked up to a steady downpour, we found a rock to hide out under during the storm. I’m sure that Zach and McCall were questioning us at this point after we had earlier prefaced, “Colorado is so dry, we shouldn’t have any bad rain and if anything, it’ll just be a passing thunderstorm”.
The storm slowed down a bit and we continued on towards camp - enjoying a beautiful ridge line hike during the fleeting weather window. Once we finally made it to camp, the rain picked back up again. We sang songs to each other from the safety of our tents to pass the time and brought our annual chip crunching contest to the backcountry this year. We hiked in potato chips and the competition provided some much needed entertainment during the very rainy weather.
We were fortunate on the second day to fit in a beautiful day hike traverse where we summited several 13’ers. The views were beautiful and we were happy to have an opportunity to try and dry our boots. That weather window didn’t last long and the storm reemerged on the last half mile of our descent. By this point, our boots were still wet and some of our core hiking clothes were wet. We had plans to stay in the backcountry for a few more days, but after doing an InReach weather text, the forecast was not looking promising and we made the call to hike out the next morning. The forecast showed significant rain the next several days across most of the state. After a long, wet hike out of the backcountry, we were thrilled to be going back to our warm, dry house.
In happy coincidence, we learned that the day we hiked out was National Margarita Day and we fully leaned into that holiday. We drank a lot of Margaritas and played Catan on a rainy day. The bad news was that the main water line was leaking near the guest room at our rental house so Zach and McCall had to empty a bucket every few hours. It was wet inside and outside! We had a blast, but this wasn’t exactly the Colorado experience we were hoping to give Zach and McCall. We thoroughly searched the weather across the entire state to find anywhere that wasn’t raining and opted to hike a 13er in James Peak Wilderness near Denver the next day as it was the only range with clear weather.
We started at 4 am to be on the summit for sunrise, and while we didn’t quite make that ambitious goal - the views were amazing catching sunrise on the way up. The inversion from the top was very special to see and gave us a great backdrop for some prom-posed photos with friends.
Apparently our forest roads here are not as well maintained as those in the great northern states because McCall was absolutely losing her mind laughing hysterically as we drove the washboarded access road back towards town. Meanwhile, a guy in a truck came flying past us, passing us on the trail, and we saw the result of that at the bottom of the road - he was stuck with a blown-out strut. We were finished with the hike by mid-morning and could enjoy some coffee and pastries before heading back to the city.
Despite a lot of hurdles and some unexpected weather, extra large sandwiches, and mosquitos - we always have the best time with this group and can’t wait to see where this annual trip takes us next year.