Note: The first part of the track is kind of messed up since my phone was in power saving mode.

In my ongoing quest to get out in the woods twice a week since I retired, this was an opportunity to get out for an early higher elevation trip. I noticed the modeled snow depth map showed the 4635 road was snow free much of the way up – the spot where Cripple Creek crossed appeared to be snow free so I thought it would be an interesting trip to head up from there and see if we could get up to Cache Meadow before all the bugs hatch. Kirk was busy but Zack wanted to go, so the plan was set.

We headed out a bit earlier than normal and got to the trailhead just about 10:00. We were REALLY surprised when we found another vehicle parked there:

We suited up and headed out. I wasn’t quite sure if I should leash Thor or not. I decided to let him off leash to begin with to see if we saw evidence of someone ahead of us. There was zero snow for a bit of the way up. Shortly before the crossing of the 4635-140 spur, we saw the first real snow patches – and LOTS of water (this would not be the last of the water):

We crossed the road and headed down the road to where the trail continued. In a short ways we got to the 4/5 way junction of confusing trails:

Even though I’ve been up here quite a few times, this spot is still confusing to me.

We continued on and it wasn’t long before we got to the first of several meadows:

As we got farther north, the elevation increased slightly, the snow got deeper and the snowmelt intensified – there was LOTS of runoff, usually covering the trail, but sometimes covering much more than the trail:

We continued up the trail and soon came to a small lake:

There was still a LOT of snow up here though:

As we neared Cache Meadow proper, the snow got even deeper – there was almost no bare ground in this area:

When we got close to the junction with the Grouse Point trail (we were planning to do a loop – come in Cache Meadow and return via “Trail X”), there was literally a river of runoff that covered the entire trail as well as several feet on each side of it:

We got to the Grouse Point Junction and after some searching in the snow we found the trail heading to the old cabin location and the sign. We stopped here for lunch. There was a little bare ground in the trees but still a lot of snow.

After lunch, we carefully tried to make our way across the meadow and not get too wet. Thor had been trying to find his own way – for some reason he thought the path was a bit farther east. I took this photo of him on a pretty impressive snow drift:

We found our way south thru the woods, sometimes following the trail and sometimes not. We were trying to follow Trail X which took us by Cripple Creek Lake. After a bunch of routefinding, we finally arrived at the lake:

We continued along the lake – in this area the trail was mostly clear but there was still snow in places. We were able to follow it reasonably easily until we left the lake and the snow got worse for a bit but then we started descending a bit and it got a bit easier since the snow started getting more intermittent. After a bit we got to the junction of Trail X and the Cache Meadow trail (you can see a 702 sign in the photo). We were debating on how to return – whether to take the cutoff trail back north to where we started, or to walk out to the road and walk the road back to the top of Cripple Creek. This was the junction of Trail X and 702:

Zack walked up the Cache Meadow trail to see what it was like – he said it wasn’t too bad so we decided to go that way. We soon got back to the confusing junction, but just before we got to the junction, I noticed this interesting rockslide with a bunch of snow beneath it:

Once back at this junction, we headed back the way we came. At this point the snow had mostly cleared out so the going was quite a bit easier. We soon got back to the 4635 crossing and found the other vehicle gone. We had expected to meet up with them at some point during the day, but somehow we missed them.

Since it was still somewhat early (2:00ish), we talked about what we wanted to do next. We could just go home, or we could head downhill on Cripple Creek to the interesting section between the 130 spur. We decided to do that. The first part of the trail wasn’t too bad – a bit overgrown in places but not too bad. When we got to the rockslide, we had a pretty good view of the Cripple Creek drainage:

After we exited the rockslide we soon entered the burned area – up to this point the trail wasn’t too bad – this upper section had always been somewhat brushy and today was no exception. Once we entered the burned area, things changed rapidly. We we were up here a few years ago after the fires, the trail was in amazing shape. A lot of work had been done to cut out the trail, do tread work, and remove brush. Once in the burned area, you couldn’t tell there had been any work done – it was filled with downed logs, dead vine maple overhanging the trail and washed out sections of tread. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures in this area. We were just trying to get thru it. This section will need a considerable amount of work to make it easily passable again.

After a long time fighting all the impediments, we finally got down to the 4635-130 crossing. We had taken so much time getting down here, we couldn’t really go any farther. This is what that part looked like:

Due to the difficulty coming down the trail, we decided to walk back the road. It was a little farther but not too much farther than the trail would have been. Walking the road wasn’t easy, as there were quite a few trees over the road, but it was still considerably easier than it would have been going back up the trail.

We finally made it back to the truck about 4:30. Interestingly enough, there was a truck parked where the vehicle that morning had been parked. We weren’t really sure what they were doing – they had been using an electric chainsaw to cut some branches up or something but it was kind of odd. We packed up and headed back down the road.

The first part of the day was the highlight for me – seeing Cache Meadow when it isn’t choked with bugs is great, and Thor always loves the snow – we won’t have too many more opportunities for snow. The second part of the day was a bit depressing seeing how many trees and other things had affected the trail below 4635. I think I may try and do some work to cleanup some of the vine maple and smaller logs in this section.

As always, a great day in the woods, with some interesting (and sad) surprises.