Prelude -- On June 7th, I emailed both the Colorado Parks and Wildlife and a volunteer organization about
the lack of a bridge over the creek plus how many obstacles that we encountered during our hikes. I hope
that the information will be useful to them.
Sunday, June 30th --
As with previous trips, it took three hours to drive from Casper to Fort Collins. Yet another time,
construction wasn't happening on I-25. We checked into our hotel, rested for a while, and went out to eat.
Unfortunately, I was not able to contact our friends so that we could have dinner with them. After dinner, we
returned to the hotel. Unfortunately, the hotel was not very desireable. For example, the air conditioning
system did not produce cold air. Also, something was wrong with it because it went through a cycle of making
more and more noise. We were able to go to sleep relatively early because, as usual, we were getting up very
early. Note: Our friend's backpack weight 40 pounds and mine weighed 50 pounds.
Monday, July 1st --
At 4 o'clock, we woke up. At 4:45, we went to Denny's for breakfast. There were a few "interesting"
issues. One, the cook didn't know how to baste eggs. Two, the cook set off the restaurant's fire alarm. And
three, our friend got what looked like 1-1/2 lbs of hash browns along with his eggs.
During the drive to the trailhead, we saw two mountain goats on the side of the road eating grass. Also, a deer
buck ran in from of us. I took two anti leg-cramping pills, just to be safe. At 7:20, we arrived at the trailhead.
There were no vehicles. We took a nap for about 70 minutes. It's not fun waking up at 4 o'clock in the
morning.
At 4:08, we arrived at the lake. So, it took us over 7-1/2 hours to hike to the lake. Usually, it takes no more
than four hours. Why? Well, you'll soon discover why it took so long.
When we arrived at our favorite campsite, fortunately, no one was in it. Interestingly, a tree had fallen down
in the middle of it. More fortunately, we weren't there when the tree fell down. Specifically, it fell down right
on the spot where our friend would set up his one-man tent.
There was a funny situation -- when one of the birds would sing, it sounds like it was saying "Cheeseburger!
Cheeseburger! Cheese!" Do you know the Saturday Night Live skit with Dan Akroyd and John Belushi
where they worked in a hamburger joint and all that they sold was cheeseburgers and Pepsi?
It rained a little bit during our hike. I don't remember it raining any of the 40-plus times that I hiked to the
lake.
So, why did it take so long for us to hike from the trailhead to the lake? There were two reasons. One was that
there was no bridge over the creek. Our friend and I spent about 20 minutes determining the best way to get
to the other side. We concluded that we would wade through the creek while wearing the shoes that we wore
with our fishing waders. He gave me one of his walking sticks so that I could use it to stabilize myself in the
current. We locked elbows, he walked in, he bursted out a "Ooh!", I walked in, I bursted out something
similar, and in about 15 seconds, we were on the other side of the lake. Fortunately, the spot in the creek where
we walked was only about one foot deep. On the other side, we took off our backpacks, pulled out a towel,
removed our shoes, dried off our feet, put back on our hiking boots, repacked our wader shoes, and began the
last mile of the hike. Note: This "adventure" was easy compared to what we were about to encounter.
We began hiking up the steepest climb of the hike. After about 500 yards, we had to straddle over a fallen tree.
After another few hundred yards, we had to straddle over another fallen tree. After that, another. And then
another. Sometimes, we had to remove our backpacks and crawl under a fallen tree while dragging our
backpacks behind us. Sometimes, we had to walk in the undergrowth around a fallen tree. I didn't count how
many times we had to maneuver around trees, but I guessed how many that we had to deal with through these
situations. I learned on Friday when we hiked down the hill that my guess was well below reality.
By the way, when we reached one of the last fallen trees in the path -- one that had fallen directly down the
middle of the path, I decided that I had to do something about it. First, I could see that our friend was "at the
end of his rope" and might collapse before reaching the lake. Second, I was angry about what we had to go
through with the fallen trees. So, I removed my backpack and spent 5 or 10 minutes breaking off
branches from the tree. After that, our friend and I were easily able to walk along the path adjacent to the tree.
What a nightmare!
A side note -- while hiking, we saw both deer, moose, and bear "scat". You'll see two photos of them on the
'Pictures' page related to this trip.
After arriving at the lake and setting up our tent, our friend took a nap for 70 minutes. (We got lucky that the
light rain that we hiked through during the last mile had stopped prior to us reaching the lake. It is not fun
setting up camp while it is raining.) After he woke up, we proceeded to set up camp by hanging the clothesline
and getting water from the lake using our filtration system. Soon thereafter, we ate dinner. After we finished, I
walked to the lake. I checked it twice that night but did not see any fish rising. I hoped that it was only because
it was too late in the afternoon and that it was not because there was a shortage of fish ... again.
Immediately after eating dinner, our friend went to bed at 8:55. I went to bed at 9 o'clock. As usual, I used
earplugs because our friend has sleep apnea and snores ... sometimes quite loudly. During the night, our friend
had to urinate three times, twice while it was raining. I'm glad that I almost never need to go to the bathroom
at night after going to bed. Also, our friend's legs cramped up six times during the night. What fun!
Airplanes: 53
People: 0
Fish: 0
Temp: High -- 75, Low -- Warm
Tuesday, July 2nd
I woke up at 6:45. After sleeping for about 9 hours, I couldn't sleep anymore, so I wrote notes about our trip
while our friend continued sleeping. When I woke up, it was raining and it continued until 9:45. Our friend
told me that he had checked the weather forecast with Weather.com prior to our trip and they predicted no
precipitation during our trip. However, it rained a lot during Monday night. I counted four separate times. I
thought ‘If it rains this much during our trip, no problem because I brought playing cards.' After the rain
ended, the wind started blowing. Hard.
My system of sleeping under my bag worked well until sometime when I got too cold and crawled inside my
bag. Our friend had leg cramps twice during the night, even after taking anti leg-cramping pills.
Our friend got up at 10:30. We ate @quot;brunch@quot; at 11:45. Fifteen minutes earlier, my cousin arrived.
He said that he hiked in front of two forest rangers. When they all stopped at the creek, they spoke for a while
and they told him that their first task was to build a new bridge over the creek. They were at the creek that
day to research how to do it which, meant that the bridge might not be built before our friend and I hiked
back down on Friday.
My cousin also told us that he had to take his larger and heavier 10 lb., 2-man tent on the trip because one of
the zippers broke on his smaller and lighter 1-man tent. Last, he told us that he walked through the creek with
his bare feet. That is risky since a person's feet are more likely to slip on rocks in water compared to when
wearing shoes.
At 12:30, our friend went back into the tent for a nap. At 4:30, our friend got up. At 6:15, our friend went back
into the tent for the night. I went to bed at 7:40.
Our friend did not snore a lot during the night. That indicated that he was not sleeping, or at least not sleeping
deeply. How much did our friend sleep from midnight to midnight on Tuesday? The answer is 20 hours and 15
minutes -- 10-1/2 + 4 + 5-3/4. He must work a lot. And hard!
We never launched our belly boats in the water, either the previous day or this day. The reason was because we
did not see any fish jumping. And that always happens at the lake.
Our friend snored a lot during the night. That indicated that he was sleeping deeply.
Airplanes: 22
People: 2 ... and 1 dog
Fish: 0
Temp: High -- 72, Low -- Cold
Wednesday, July 3rd --
During the previous night, my cousin's air mattress sprung a leak. So, he essentially slept on the ground for
the rest of the night.
I woke up around 8 o'clock. So, I slept about 13 hours. Wow! Our friend didn't have to go to the bathroom
all night. He said that the reason was that his body didn't have to eliminate lactic acid as a result of cramping
during the previous night.
Both our friend and I had difficulty falling asleep the previous night. For our friend, maybe it was because of
how much he slept and napped during the previous day and night. But when our friend DID finally fall asleep,
he snored a lot during the night.
My iPhone had lost a lot of battery power. It was probably due to taking a lot of photos during the hike on
Monday. The power was down to 20 percent.
We had seen and heard birds but, like last year's trip, no wildlife. Not even chipmunks or squirrels. And there
were no hawks or eagles.
At 11 o'clock, our friend and I ate breakfast. At 11:45, we started walking around the lake to spread my
brother's ashes over the old campsite. At exactly 12:00, I spread my brother's ashes. My cousin reminisced
about a couple of times that he spent with my brother, our friend remembered a funny experience, I said some
things that another friend asked me to say for my brother, and I recounted several things that my brother and
I did together. Afterwards, I asked if we should return to camp by continuing our walk around the other --
South -- side. My cousin said that he checked the area out earlier that day and there were too many fallen
trees along the path. (Refer to text below about the related fallen trees.)
We returned to camp, taking several photos of the lake and its surroundings. My cousin ate a quick lunch
because he needed to leave soon since, including hiking and driving, it would take him about 8 hours to return
home.
At 12:30, my friend took a nap. He woke up at about 3:30. He said that it was too hot in the tent to stay in it
any longer.
At 1 o'clock, I walked around the lake. I started on the side that my cousin said was blocked by fallen trees. In
about 3 minutes, I found two fallen trees, I returned to camp, retrieved our foldable saw, and returned to the
two trees. It took me about 10 minutes to remove the tops of the trees that were blocking the path. Afterwards,
I continued walking and encountered three more fallen trees. Fortunately, it was easy to walk over them.
I decided to walk around the entire lake. (I figured that our friend would be napping for a while and I had
time to do it.) I took my time — 1-1/2 hours — and took a lot of photos. I also spent about 10 minutes at the
old campsite, talking to my brother. When I walked back to our campsite, I heard a large animal run away
when I approached the “launching area”. It was probably a moose.
We ate dinner at 6 o'clock. Beforehand, we had a few shots of high-quality Scotch that our friend brought with
him. We drank it in honor of my brother. It's the first time that I ever drank alcohol at the lake. I got a slight
headache, but it was worth it.
At 6:30, we walked to the lake and watched the sunset. While we sat there, my friend heard some people
arrive. It turned out to be a man, a woman, and a dog.
At 7:30, my friend and I hit the hay for the night. Wow, the wind was blowing hard!
Airplanes: 44
People: 0
Fish: 0
Temp: High -- 78, Low -- Warm
Thursday, July 4th --
I woke up at 8:00. At 9 o'clock, I got up. Our friend got up at 9:15. It was colder than the previous mornings.
I could hear the people in the other campsite. Later that morning, a man and his dog visited us in our
campsite. He said that he had once gone to the lake in 2015. Not to one-up him, I told him that I had been
going to the lake since 1973. We discussed how difficult it was to hike up the last mile of the trail. He said that
he was hiking down the hill that morning.
It was a slow day. Since there was essentially no fish in the lake, we could not fish. Well, we could fish, but we
were not going to catch any fish. Today, our friend did not need to nap because he said that he was "napped
out". So, we did not do much during the day other than cleaning up around the campsite. For example,
previous campers had built a campfire ring. They also cut up firewood and put it near the campfire ring. Our
friend threw all of the wood into the forest. We did not disssamble the fire ring, but decided to leave it for the
forest rangers and volunteers to witness.
I want to mention one thing that occurred the previous day. And it was one of the saddest things that I have
ever heard. Before my cousin left camp to return to his vehicle, our friend stated that this was his last trip to
the lake. He said that he would not have gone on this trip if it was not for the most important reason why we
went on this trip -- for me to spread my brother's ashes on the old campsite where he, my dad, and I camped
back in the 1970's and 1980's. By the way, it was exactly 20 years ago, almost to the day, when I spread my
dad's ashes on the old campsite. After our friend said that, my cousin stated essentially the same thing. So, it
was one of the saddest things that I have ever heard.
Airplanes: 38
People: 2 ... and 1 dog
Fish: 0
Temp: High -- 74, Low -- Cold
Friday, July 5th --
I woke up when it was still dark. It was another night of not sleeping well. But this time instead of having
difficulty falling asleep, I had difficulty STAYING asleep. I lay in my sleeping bag for a while ... until the sky
starting becoming lighter. Eventually, I fell asleep. I woke up again at 8am when our friend's alarm went off.
We wanted to get up early so that we could start hiking early. We knew that it was going to be another
difficult hike and we wanted to return to Casper before it was dark. Neither one happened.
After we ate, we packed up our things and started hiking at 11:05. If you remember, I thought that there were
about ten fallen trees that we would have to hike over, under, or around. As our friend and I hiked down the
hill, I counted ... and photographed ... all 21 obstacles. It was unbelievable! I informed the appropriate
organizations that I previously contacted about our experience. After passing the stretch of difficult hiking, we
arrived at the creek. Unfortunately, the rangers and volunteers had not yet worked on the replacement bridge.
So, our friend and I put on our wader shoes and waded through the creek again. Oooh, it was cold!
Our friend was having difficulty during some parts of the rest of the hike. But he fought through it. For
example, I walked first during most of the rest of the hike. But during the last 3/4 mile, he walked first and
only stopped one or two times. So, we finished the hike in about five hours at 4 o'clock. As usual, we drove to
Laramie, WY and got some hamburgers at the Dairy Queen Grill & Chill. Then, we continued to Casper.
Along the way, since we arrived at our friend's place later than hoped around 9:30pm, we were driving while
antelopes and deer were alongside the road. We had to carefully watch for them possibly running across the
highway. And they did -- three times. But we made it!
Note: When we arrived at the trailhead, there were three other vehicles.
Airplanes: ??
People: 7 ... and 2 dogs
Fish: 0
Temp: High -- 72
Epilogue
- Totals --
Airplanes: 157
People: 11 ... and 4 dogs
Fish Caught: 0
- The difficult part of sleeping for me is that I get sore shoulders; our friend informed me that he gets sore hips
- The mosquitoes bit me many times, mostly on my ankles
- The Thermacell mosquito-repelling device worked well. When it was on.
- My cousin went to "the lake" twice -- 20 years ago in 2004 when I spread my dad's ashes on our old campsite
and this year to witness me spreading my brother's ashes on our old campsite
- Our friend announced that this trip was his last trip to the lake
- On July 9th, a wilderness area volunteer emailed me. He pointed out that he and his wife had removed all of the obstructions on the trail except one. So, our friend and I had gone on the trip 10 days later, we would not have had such a difficult hike.