Day Hiking the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Happy Mother's Day!  In Colorado, spring has sprung.  Humming birds are back.  The aspens are budding.  And my longing to be in the mountain air is growing.  In anticipation of the holiday I eagerly penciled in backpacking for the weekend… No Mother's Day brunch here.  However, late season snow forced me to change the itinerary to a day hike.  How did it go?  Read further to find out!

Since moving to Colorado, I have wanted to hike the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Their crimson hue calling me each morning. So I made a goal to explore the area. With a topo map of the area, and trail description, I carefully investigated the route to hike the trail to Brush Creek Lakes. My wonderful husband, in the spirit of a Mother's Day Celebration, agreed to the planned route for an awesome hike.

I carefully navigated the way to the forest service road, turning where appropriate, on up the way to the trailhead. The dirt road quickly turned to a rather rocky road... In this case a Jeep road. Despite not having a high clearance off road vehicle, I was not to be deterred from my goal of a terrific hike this weekend. With an "onward and upward" attitude we continued. When we drove through a creek, however, I became concerned we had over-reached our vehicle's capabilities. Soon, we admitted defeat. But with a cliff on one side of the road and an upsloping mountain on the other, we had no choice but to drive BACKWARD for a quarter mile until we met an appropriate turn-around point.

Conceding victory to the Jeep road, we proceeded back to the civilized paved world with which we were familiar. But was I to give up hope completely regarding my epic hike? ABSOLUTELY NOT. My map indicated an easy-to-access trailhead to The Dry Creek Trail. According to the map, it looked like a great hike with likely great views. And the trailhead was easy to access.

We were off... On an expected 6.5 mile hike. We were impressed by our kids' new-found energy for hiking this year. Not one complaint. This was going to be awesome! The trail gained altitude aggressively. And as we gained altitude, we gained SNOW... A little at first, then full-on snowpack. Sadly, we turned back. The mountains had won. Too early for the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. But, as Arnold Schwarzenegger said, "I'LL BE BACK!"

We will see you on the trail!

-Mama Bear

 

Matt... tired of post-holing through the snow