I was really hoping to do a fall backpack trip in the Indian Peaks this year, but back to back work trips and Meg’s birthday hut trip pushed it into mid October. It was the middle of deer/elk rifle season so I figured it would be best to steer clear of the Indian Peaks just west of Boulder and head down to the Lost Creek Wilderness. I figured it would be less traveled, a little warmer, and since it’s always a little drier there would be less elk and deer hunters. I still wore my blaze orange vest, hat, and backpack panel just in case.
I head out early Saturday morning and decided to park at the Ute Creek trail head on the southwestern side of the Lost Creek Wilderness (LCW) near Jefferson/Tarryall. I took US285 down to Jefferson and headed west for several miles on a county road past Tarryall Reservoir. Upon arrival at the trail head I realized I had left my water bottles at home (ugh). Thank God I had a single Nalgene in the truck that I was able to fill up at the first creek. Worst case I would had to backtrack to Jefferson and stop at a gas station. This is a pretty dry area and water can be hard to find where I was heading.
Ute Creek TH to McCurdy Park (yellow highlighted area). 9.5 miles one-way on Gaia Maps
I headed up the Ute Creek trail and about 45 minutes in I encountered a hunter in the prone position who was oddly glassing his .308 rifle up the trail. I think I startled him from behind and he was really surprised to see a backpacker out there. We chatted for a moment and it sounded like he hadn’t seen anything all day. Being a “gun” guy I’m not nervous around firearms, but I was a little unsettled that he was “glassing” right on the trail and I could totally see some Boulder hippies throwing a fit about this. I don’t think there’s any regulations surrounding hunting from a trail, but it’s probably not the best idea as you will likely run into folks who will hassle you. I hope he eventually harvested a nice elk and stocked his freezer for the season.
A little further up the trail I practiced a Ryan Van Duzer technique of placing your camera tripod up the trail, hiking/running back down the trail, and then walking past it to make it seem like you have a film crew. While the video turned out okay, it is certainly a lot of work (especially while backpacking), so I only did it once. Maybe I’ll try it come more in the future. I definitely should have brought the GoPro chest harness because most of my videos walking were super shaky. I deleted most of them and apologize for any dizzying footage I left in by mistake.
The Ute Creek trail is steep. Steep as in 14er approach hike. I was not expecting that and was sweating my ass off by the time I reached the McCurdy trail. Once I got above treeline on the McCurdy trail the views of the Ten Mile and Sawatch Ranges were out of this world. I definitely wasn’t expecting views like that on this trip. It really wasn’t nearly as windy as I expected either. The high plateau at the base of Bison Peak is pretty awesome and definitely a place I’d like to return to in the future.
The stretch between Bison Peak and McCurdy Park is pretty uneventful, but the views are pretty cool in most spots. The rock formations aren’t very common in Colordo either. As I came around McCurdy Pass (I think) I could see the McCurdy Park Tower and down into where I’d be camping for the night. The cool thing is I could see another tent down in the valley. That was a little reassuring as I hadn’t seen anybody else but the hunter that day and I was roughly 10 miles from the TH. As I came down into McCurdy Park I stumbled upon another backpacker who ironically was also from Westminster. We chatted for a bit and then I needed to find the creek nearby to grab some water before dark. The temp started dropping and it was below freezing as soon as the sun went down.