Beartracks Lakes Hiking

Friday night, after the happy hour, Sandy and I decided on a hike for us, Hillary and her friend (who, we'd find out the next day, is Liz). The timing of that selection (after a few drinks) might have been the first mistake...The Beartracks lake hike looked ok - close to Denver (in the Mount Evans wildness area), between 10-12 miles round-trip, pretty.

Here are the players (besides myself):

Sandy Hillary
Liz
First, we got a bit confused about the nomenclature of the roads - the gazetteer gave road numbers but there were actual "street" names. We had to travel through the Mount Evans State Wildlife Area by motorized vehicle to reach the trail head. We got turned around once or twice and then there was the whole "habitat stamp" thing! I don't know, it seems pretty harmless now but, at the time, the signs seemed to indicate that if we didn't have a habitat stamp somewhere, then we'd be trapped and skinned.

Once we reached the actual trail head (after many bumps on a dirt road in our 1994 Ford Escort station wagon with about 1/2 inch of clearance), the parking there was nearly full! In fact, we had to squeeze in just ahead of an older, Asian couple and their family members in a Toyota Tundra who drove all that way just to picnic.

Ok, once we started hiking it was amazingly fucking hot. We hiked at least 10 hours (well, probably 45 minutes at most) through this burn area that was completely exposed. We then went through some more green, moist forest for EVER to get to the lake. The last bit on the way to the lake was gorgeous - a sparse forest with almost a grassy bed. I spotted this fungus that appears to be sweating:


We spent about 15 minutes at the lake while it drizzled and then headed back...on a different trail. We went a good bit down the trail before more than two of us faced the fact that we didn't recognize anything. And the clouds were moving in.

At this point the thunder was getting a bit louder and there were occasional flashes of lightening. We turned around and walked back for almost a mile when we ran into an a old guy fisherman who told us that both trails go to the same place. So, we turned around and hiked back. This is when the rain and hail started. We took shelter under a tree until we realized it wasn't going to stop any time soon. Here is Sandy crouched under a pine:


We pretty much ran for most of the way back in the pouring rain. Near the end we saw a moose! It showed some signs of aggression (ears back, ridge of fur standing up on head and neck, kicking front leg) and we shuffled along.

There was fatigue at the end of the day. We'd hiked around 12 miles and we were drenched. We soothed ourselves at Woody's Pizza in Golden to wrap up the day.