4 Pass Loop

Hey, there, dear Readers! I'm not sure if there are any of you out there anymore, but I shall faithfully write anyway.

So last Saturday to Monday, Jade and I hiked the 4 Pass Loop, 28 (I think) miles around the Maroon Bells. I won't describe the technicalities of the hike itself, because this PDF does it pretty well:

The whole hike was absolutely gorgeous, and we both had a blast.

The first day we hiked about 11 miles, over two passes, and down to a valley/canyon that Jade and I re-named "Forever Basin", just because the real name sounds kind of like that and is harder to pronounce and remember, and we thought that Forever Basin sounded nicer. The alpine meadows that we hiked though were FULL of tons of beautiful wildflowers, more than I even knew! It was amazing! The first night we camped by a waterfall and an area where an avalanche had crossed the river, and was still in the process of melting. I would post a picture of it, but I'm having trouble doing that, right now. The snow basically formed two curved awnings over the river, and were melting, drop by drop, into the water, like it was raining. It was very cool. We were exhausted from getting up at 5:30 and hiking so long, so we only stayed awake long enough to watch the first stars come out, and then we went to sleep.

The next morning we hiked down a beautiful waterfall -- it must have been 100 feet tall! and we had to wade across the river several times, in our sandals. The water was so cold that it hurt our feet, but there were so many trees fallen over the trail, that it was impassable, and so we walked along the other side of the river. Actually, one of the US Forest Service employees that is living in the Bunkhouse with me this summer is soon going to clean up that area! Jade and I were wondering who was going to have to go camp in this beautiful area and clean it up for their job (not such a bad gig!). When we finally found the trail again and put our hiking boots back on, we hiked up and over Trail Rider Pass. It was a VERY challenging climb. From the top we could see Snowmass Lake, a very large, very deep and very blue alpine lake. We hiked down to it, and found a great campsite. I wanted to go swimming, but it got cloudy towards sunset. The moon was so bright that the stargazing that night was not very good, but I was much warmer than the previous night.

In the morning I finally got the chance to go swimming and sit in a spot of morning sun to warm up after. We practically had the lake to ourselves! Afterward, though, I had a hard time warming up, and so I sat outside in my sleeping bag and drank some coffee that Jade made for us. That didn't actually help all that much, but once we started hiking, I sure warmed up and dried off fast!

That afternoon we hiked up and over Buckskin Pass, and right about that time, a thunderstorm hit us. The view of the storm and the lightning right over the Bells was spectacular! We also met a man who must have been 70 years old, who was hiking the same loop we were leaving (and he only had one tooth!).

When we started nearing Crater Lake, where we head back to civilization, we were both sad to be leaving, but we were very tired, and out feet hurt. The 2 mile hike from Crater to Maroon Lake seemed to take forever! Once we got home, we went out to pizza for an early dinner, and Jade headed out to Denver. I went to bed early, and since then, it sure has been hard to get back into the swing of things!

The last two days I have been working at -- you guessed it -- the Maroon Bells! That has been interesting, and it has been really great to tell visitors about my trip! The hike from Crater to Maroon Lake and back, which I have had to do several times in the last two days, is MUCH easier without a 35 pound bag on my back!

This was only a very quick over-view of the trip. I had such a great time, if you want to hear more, I would be happy to tell you about it all in detail! There are so many other things that I could write about - like my week up at Toklat, but I think this is all for now!