Hiking 2015

Calvin had a number of hiking trips planned this summer that didn't all turn out quite as well as he planned.  He had planned to backpack a 16 mile segment of the Gold Rush trail for us from Caples Lake to Tragedy Spring. This was my request, but I wasn't all that enthusiastic about backpacking all 16 miles.  He planned to start at Caples Lake and go west and I wanted to start at Tragedy Spring and go east following in Lucy Nutting's footsteps.  So a couple of weeks ago we took a day hike east along the trail from Tragedy Springs to Mud Lake, about 4 miles each way if you trust the 49er journal excerpt on the marker at Mud Lake. The trail from Tragedy Springs heads through a rather pretty pine forest. 

Most of the trail follows a ridge line and the views were pretty spectacular and still undeveloped.

There were even a few big trees that might have been there in 1848 when Lucy passed through.

We were following the trail in reverse order from our trail guide, so it was reassuring when we found a trail marker along the way.

We thought this was Mud Lake at first. Since it is a severe drought this year this looked like it could have been a lake in a good year.

but... it turns out that this is Mud Lake

which actually looks like a pretty nice lake. And even in a drought year in August there were still a few wild flowers.

and the grave of one George Cottowood, no other details known. It took courage to take this trail.

After our slightly truncated hike on the Gold Rush trail Calvin got to go hiking in Colorado with Butch, Zach and Austin, which might turn out to be his most successful hike of this year. They actually got to sleep in tents. 

And have a big campfire.

And cross a raging river

Life just doesn't get much better than this.