Sunday June 27, 21.8mi/35.1km

Gold Hill TH (104.4/9199ft) to Guller Creek (126.2/11775ft) (CO)

Back to the Colorado Trail!

I woke up very early at home, and packed up my gear and food.

I drove the hour from Golden, and met my friend Kumi at the Colorado Trail trailhead near Breckenridge. She is visiting Colorado this week, and we hiked together most of the day.

The first part of the trail was thru a clear-cut area, done to prevent further spread of the destructive pine beetle.

After an hour, we entered a burn section that was eerily quiet.

We passed quite a few dayhikers today, and one older couple was inspecting a meadow full of Corn Lillies.

As we climbed higher to 11,000ft the wildflowers became abundant.

As we climbed ever higher, a wonderful view of Dillon Lake emerged.

The mountains to the south appeared to have received some snow last night.

We finally finished climbing around 1pm, and stood at the top of the Tenmile Range ridge. There were still a few leftover cornices from last winter!

Kumi looking down on Breckenridge (to the east).

Of course we each had to get a summit photo. Copper mountain is in the background.

We descended 2500ft, all the way down to the Copper Mt parking lot.

We said goodbye to each other, and Kumi gave me some delicious snacks.

The next few miles weaved thru Copper mountain ski resort, with an unusual perspective of ski lifts in summer.

Finally the trail left the developed area, and re-entered a tranquil forest.

It was a very well built section of trail, with little bridges over the streams.

I spent an hour following Guller Creek upstream, and the shifting clouds made interesting photos.

At the end of the day, I emerged above treeline again, just as the clouds started to disperse.

I setup camp just before Searle Pass, and had a wonderful view of the sunset, and the whole river valley that I had just hiked up.

I was exhausted from getting up early, so I passed out just after 9pm.

Sunday May 30, 4.6mi/7.4km

Anderson Camp (53.2/120ft) to Usal Beach Trailhead (57.8/40ft) (CA)

This was our last morning on the trail, I’m gonna miss hiking with these peeps. Bard seemed very awake for the early hour.

We got moving at 7:15am, knowing it was going to be a long day of driving. We crossed a stream and started climbing up the opposite hill, and then paused for a bull elk in the trail.

The elk wasn’t eager to move, and when he did, it was just further up the trail. Eventually, he moved off to the side and we were able to get by.

The climb continued up to a ridge, where we had spectacular views of the ocean.

The trail turned inland again, and the next part was a steeply eroded section. It even had a rope for a handrail!

We took a break by the final stream, Dark Gulch stream. I finished my haribo candy and M&Ms, but we only had two miles to go. The climb out of the gulch wasn’t well maintained.

We emerged up on another ridge, and the terrain was more open.

As we hiked along the slowly descending ridge, the undergrowth became thicker and thicker.

There was poison oak alongside the trail, sometimes on both sides, which made it impossible to avoid.

After the poison oak carwash (we are all burning our clothes after this), the trail resumed it’s nice tread.

The last mile was clearly very popular with dayhikers, as we saw a dozen people. And the trail was very well maintained. A brief break at the final viewpoint overlooking the ocean:

The trail descended off the ridge on a dozen switchbacks thru a mature forest. It was getting quite hot by now (11am), and the shade was very welcomed.

These little flowers were all along the edges of the trail.

We arrived at the finishing trailhead just after 11am. The signboard was knocked over, so we decided to get a photo with the only other structure nearby.

We still had a half mile further to walk, since my car was parked down at the beach. We changed our clothes, drank and ate car snacks, and then headed down to the water.

It was memorial day weekend, so there were probably 100 other people around. But no one was in the water… except us!

Bard went first…

I went next, and while trying to get in the water slowly, a big wave came and knocked me over. It was COLD! But felt so good and refreshing. We dried off, and went back to the car. After some creative driving thru soft sand, I made it to the gravel road, and everyone else got in. We had a three hour drive back up to Bard’s car at Mattole Trailhead, with a stop for lunch along the way.

Goodbyes are hard, group photos are easy.

We parted ways, Bard driving south, and Topshelf and I driving north to Ashland.

It’s a beautiful trail, and with a little maintenance it could be a good beginner hike. The driving logistics are a little tedious, though there are commercial (expensive) shuttle options. I’d recommend this trail if you’re in California, but otherwise I think the Olympic Peninsula or Oregon Coast Trail are more rewarding beach-hiking options.

Sea you later, Lost Coast! 😁

Saturday May 29, 15.3mi/24.6km

Jones Beach Campground (37.9/110ft) to Anderson Camp (53.2/120ft) (CA)

The walk out of camp felt different today, everything was very quiet, even the ocean could barely be heard.

We walked on the old two track road for a mile, then veered away from the beach.

Around the next corner was a ranger station. The guy came strolling over to collect $10 each from us… which was a little surprising. The spot we had camped at last night was technically in the State park, and he wanted the fee. But there was no signage at our campsite mentioning a fee; obviously we would have camped elsewhere. After scraping together $22 between the three of us, he let us pass. Sheesh!

The next mile of trail made us forget that whole unpleasantness. Elk were everywhere!

And even more elk …

Around the next corner was another herd of elk.

And these two elk got uncomfortably close. They are clearly used to humans.

And more elk…

After binging on elk viewing for 30 minutes, we moved on.

The trail meandered back and forth between coast and deep forest.

The floor down here on the coast is fascinating. So many different flowers!

We realized we were approaching the next camping area, when this privy appeared. The buoys were a nice touch.

As we were hiking away from the camp area and back into the thicker brush, a lone elk scared the s*** out of us!

After this point the trail became noticeably less maintained. There were a few blowdowns, and we played the game of “over versus under”.

Also the trees became huge.

Parts of the trail were slightly overgrown, but at least it was nice flowers and not poison oak.

It was a cool forest. Some huge trees…

And some groves of Aspen.

After an hour the trail dumped us back onto the beach near Wheeler Camp.

We walked on the beach for a quarter mile, and saw another group laying out on the sand.

At the other end of the beach, we found a nice grassy area and took a lunch break.

I saw a few other people hike by as we were eating. I suspect there is a trailhead not too far from here, given how clean they looked. We hiked on, and the next mile of trail is the most overgrown part of the whole hike.

A cool purple flower.

After 20 minutes the trail opened back up, and we even had some views.

The next section of trail was in a dense old forest, and some of the trees had burned.

A little banana slug crawled up as we sat around the tree.

After leaving this nice forest, there was one final section of overgrown Trail.

It’s strange how the trail alternates from overgrown to very nice. On the final downhill to our camp, we were surprised by yet another elk.

This one was a massive bull elk, and he was kind of blocking the trail, so we waited until he slowly meandered away.

We explored the Anderson camp area, which clearly had been neglected compared to the other campsites we’ve seen so far. We set up our tents on the uppermost tier, since the spots down by the creek seemed dark and damp.

It was a small campsite, so our three tents are basically touching each other. It’s our last night camping so we ate dinner, and also a bunch of our spare food. I was pretty full and I fell asleep quickly.

Friday May 28, 14.3mi/23.0km

Horse Mountain Creek (23.6mi/22ft) to Jones Beach Campground (37.9/110ft) (CA)

We got going a little earlier from camp today, I think we were all a little excited about food at the general store.

After only a mile and a half, we were off the beach. This is where some hikers decide to finish, but really the trail is only halfway done at this point.

We had 2 miles/3km of roadwalking to do, and it climbed 1000ft/300m in that short distance.

Fortunately it was still early morning and most of the road was covered in shade. We saw a few signs for the general store and we were getting close.

We got to the general store at 10am and hung out for an hour…. buying food, eating food, and getting rid of previously consumed food.

There wasn’t any place to sit or any shade, but we still enjoyed ourselves. My ginger lemonade, whole cucumber, and ice cream bar really hit the spot.

Back on the road, we had another mile to go. The views down to the ocean were a nice distraction.

We turned into a small dirt road.

When we got to the hidden Valley trailhead we took a nice break in the shade.

For the rest of this hike, most of the trail will be in the woods. It started off quite nice…

We climbed 800ft up to the top of Chamisal Mountain, I was happy to be in the shade on a hot day like this.

At the top of the climb there is a little viewpoint at the summit.

We took off our packs and had a nice break. It was hilarious seeing all three packs lined up with the princess hand sanitizers.

For the rest of the day we would be descending, which was fortunate because now it was really hot.

At the boundary of Sinkyone State park, there was an old dilapidated cabin.

I poked around it for a couple minutes and didn’t find anything interesting. Moving on…

And then all of a sudden the trail started descending really steeply. With poison oak growing on both sides. And out of nowhere two aggressive dogs came running up the trail. Not ideal!!

We shoo’ed the dogs away, and found some sticks to shove the poison oak out of the way. The trail continued steeply down all the way to a creek. I was happy to have nice cold water to drink, and even happier that the steep downhill was done.

The last mile of the day was on gentle terrain with pretty good views.

These flowers had a hilarious name.

We arrive to the Jones Beach Campground and discovered we had it all to ourselves. Perfect!

And it had a new privy!

We set up our tents, and I took a walk down to the beach. It was a half mile walk, so the other two decided to stay back in camp.

It was a very small beach.

Looking to the north:

And looking to the South:

This was not high tide, and the beach was still tiny. I think this is why the trail stays up in the forest for this section! I walked back up to camp, and had dinner with my friends. We enjoyed a nice sunset from our tent area.

I’m excited to see what tomorrow brings!

Thursday May 27, 16.9mi/27.2km

Cooskie Creek (6.7/36ft) to Horse Mountain Creek (23.6mi/22ft) (CA)

It was a leisurely morning in camp, and I watched the lightening sky from my tent.

I hiked up on the sandy bluffs surrounding Cooskie Creek, so I could see the tide of the ocean. And taunt it, of course.

It was definitely low tide! Looking back down to camp, I could see the other groups slowly getting up.

We left camp at 8:30am, and had a nice walk on the enlarged beach at low tide.

The sunrise was coming over the cliffs, and it was awesome to watch the line of light.

After a little while, the beach turned less rocky, and it was nice easy walking. Occasionally a tiny side stream would come down and flow across the beach, making cool patterns in the sand.

We had a leisurely stroll all morning, hiking close to the ocean, daring it to get me wet. One of the warning signs said “never turn your back on the ocean”, so we did this often. Taunting the ocean! We had a nice lunch break at a driftwood structure.

The afternoon started off on a grassy plateau above the beach. It was a nice variety of hiking.

A couple of spots had some thriving poison oak. Most of it was off to one side and easy to avoid.

At the start of the hike, I had gotten each of us hand sanitizers. The cheapest ones just happened to be Disney princess themed, which got more entertaining each day.

The grassy pleateau also had some surprises.

The trail eventually turned into an old road, which was very enjoyable walking.

Eventually, we were forced off the plateau by a parcel of private property. Back down to the beach!

And some other type of sea critter…

There was no shortage of tidal sea life in this area. Our return to the plateau was welcomed though, as the tide was rising again.

Soon enough, we were back down on the beach. The rising tide was shrinking our walking area, and sometimes a wave came pretty close. I still continued taunting the ocean though.

The side Creek in this spot had formed a really strange sand sculpture!

The beach continued to shrink. We were almost at camp though…

We made it to a campsite at Horse Mountain Creek just after 5:30pm. A dozen other people were already there, and most of them were part of a guided group. They were camped down on the beach, and questionably close to the high tide line. We chose a campsite up on the grassy plateau, safe from the high tide. The view of sunset from camp was spectacular.

After a nice usual dinner of Knorr pasta and a tuna packet, I re-staked my tent. It’s a scenic spot, but it’s also really windy. We’ll see if it hold up thru the night….

Wednesday May 26, 6.7mi/10.8km

Mattole Trailhead (0.0/30ft) to Cooskie Creek (6.7/36ft) (CA)

Topshelf and I woke up at our camp spot near Usal Beach, and we packed up and had a leisurely morning. We drove the 6 mile dirt road down to the beach, but had trouble playing the driving music.

The road was narrow and steep, but had amazing views.

We arrived to the beach an hour later, and ate a second breakfast. Since my car hood met a deer last week, it now has a perfect flat spot to hold a camp stove!

Usal beach was huge, and pretty windy too.

Bard arrived at 11am, and the three of us left in his car. (My car will be waiting for us at the finish). We made our way up 6 miles of curvy narrow dirt roads, and then had 3 more hours of curvy narrow paved roads.

We took a break from the motion sickness inducing roads, and had lunch at a deli/gas station along hwy 101.

We arrived to our starting trailhead, Mattole Beach, at 3:30pm.

After some final packing and preparations, we were hiking out at 4pm. Beach, here we come!

Looking behind me, back to the north:

We were all so happy to be hiking again, and I had a great afternoon catching up with Bard and Topshelf.

Occasionally the trail goes up on short bluffs above the beach, which is a nice variety. “To the left!”

The purple flowering bushes were everywhere. I think they are called coastal lupine.

The Punta Gorda lighthouse is just ahead!

It’s very old and kinda dilapidated, but the stairs are still intact, and Bard got up to the 2nd floor.

The nearby interpretive plaque explains the history of the place. It was built in 1910, and operated until February 1951.

We left the little lighthouse, and immediately came upon a massive herd of Elephant Seals.

We went down to the sand for a closer look.

They are massive creatures! The males weigh about 2000kg/4400lb.

The seals were fascinating, and we watched them for a long time. Eventually, we got back to hiking.

There was a little stream with some deliciously cold water. This stream was well above the high tide mark, so we knew it was safe to drink.

The last hour of hiking was back on the beach, which was becoming increasingly rocky.

The beach started to become sandy again, and we noticed tracks. Bear tracks, cool!

We were in the middle of a 4 mile long section that is impassible during high tide. And the tide was rapidly coming in, so at 8pm we exited the beach and hiked a short ways up Cooskie Creek. It was a great little campsite!

We made dinner on a log, and then after dinner packed all our food into the bear canisters.

The sunsets over the Pacific Ocean are superb.

It was a short day of hiking today, since we spent at least 4 hours driving on slow curvy roads. But, I still felt pretty tired and passed out shortly after sunset (hiker midnight). Tomorrow we hike the rest of the beach section!

Wednesday March 3, 8.5mi/13.7km

West Stony Creek Lean-to (129.9/920ft) to Northville Arch (138.4/810ft) (NY)

We were awake before 5am, and had breakfast and coffee in the leanto. (Jim was able to avert a coffee crisis by borrowing one from Mark). We had a major stream crossing and 5 miles of skiing, so we were on trail at 6:45am.

A minute later, we were down at West Stony Creek. Mark had scoped out the crossing yesterday, and we followed his lead acros the frozen river.

Jim about halfway across. We carefully stayed on the rocks and areas where the river had a slow flow.

Jim’s epoxy ski binding had held up great for the crossing, and we re-grouped and changed clothing layers on the other side of the river. There was a pretty good 500ft climb up out of this drainage, and I expected to get pretty warm. The snowpack, however, was pretty incompatible with skis, as it was very icy. Jim and I switched to microspikes, which proved to be a far better tool on that surface. It was the only time on the entire 138-mile trail where we had to switch out of skis.

There were a couple of log bridges, we used the ones with handrails, and avoided the one bridge that was missing its railing.

The final uphill to Mud Lake was actually pretty nice, the trail climbed gradually on switchbacks.

I love that we got to pass by this huge, random boulder. Glaciers are show-offs.

Seeing the markers and double arrows at every switchback was hilarious. It’s almost like the Adirondacks doesn’t know about switchbacks. Oh wait…

We arrived to Mud Pond at 10am, and the clouds were starting to move out. This was the last Mud Pond (there are many), and the last body of water on the NPT. At this point, I switched back to my skis, as the snow had lost most of its ice.

It was windy by the lake, so we stopped to take our final on-trail break in the woods, at the top of the last descent. Through the trees, to the right, is Great Sacandaga Lake.

I had fun skiing down the last mile of the trail, cutting across the switchbacks through the open forest. There were a couple tricky steep spots, but it was mostly type-1 fun. If the snow quality were better (less icy), it would be pure awesomeness. We arrived at the trailhead at 11am, and Mark signed in for our group. 

Barrett met us at the trailhead, and the four of us walked together back to his truck, parked a quarter-mile away at the road. After removing our skis, boots, and backpacks, we started the final 3.5 mile roadwalk. 

One of the houses along the way had made a wooden bigfoot for their yard. Sweet.

An hour later, we were crossing the bridge across an arm of Great Sacandaga Lake, into the village of Northville. 

Along the way, we met Don Hoffman, a local hiker who was very interested in interviewing us. So, we chatted, hiked, and recorded at the same time. It was fun, thanks Don! And good luck on your NPT hike this summer.

Walking down the sidewalk, only a couple blocks to the finishing arch!

We arrived at the finishing arch at 12:45pm, and had a nice surprise welcoming committee! My parents, a local couple, and a small herd of dogs were all there for the occasion. 

We went through the arch, to sign into the final trail register. 

Our final entry into the NPT/DEC trail registers. I tried to use my neatest handwriting.

Directly across the street from the Arch is a Stewarts! I love that this trail finishes with ice cream, drinks, and nice bathrooms. 

We said goodbye to our welcoming committee, and Barrett drove us 2 hours back up to his house. The theme of dinner was “calorie density”, and the poutine appetizer was fantastic.

The evening was a blur of food, conversation, and TV (WandaVision, Archer). We went to bed pretty late by hiker standards, though it was only 10pm. Tomorrow we return to real life…sigh. NPT in winter…what a cool experience!

Tuesday March 2, 8.4mi/13.5km

Abner Brook Campsite (121.5/1400ft) To West Stony Creek Lean-to (129.9/920ft) (NY)

It was a very cold morning (-1F/-18C), and I had to work fast to pack up, so I could get skiing sooner and warm up my cold feet. But, my hands work slowly in the cold, so it was a struggle. Finally, I was packed up and I started skiing up the hill. Jim and Mark were 5 minutes behind, I just wanted to get moving and warmed up. I skiied maybe a half mile up the hill, then turned around and came down to meet them. They were very close, I only had to ski for a couple minutes. We re-grouped, and I was headed south again, into the sunrise. Mark is in the lead here:

The snow was pretty dense, so skis floated along the top pretty well. As you can see, the strong winds last night brought down all sort of sticks and branches.

The southern part of this trail is lower elevation, and it definitely felt like it. The forests were mostly open hardwoods today.

We got to Woods Lake pretty quickly, it was only 9:15am! We accessed the lake from the north shore (with the landowner’s permission), and skiied the mile across the lake. It was very sunny, but also still pretty windy, so I didn’t stop to take a break.

Panoramic photo on the lake!

This photo came out blurry, but I like it anyway. Looking southeast, skiing down Woods Lake:

We arrived at the opposite shore 30 minutes later, and went back into the windless forest.

We re-joined the official NPT and I stopped to sign us into the trail register.

This trail register was full of groups hiking in the last month, it’s great to see so many people getting out there!

We took off our skis, crossed Benson Road, and put them right back on. The rest of the day was familiar territory, as we had skiied this on a dayhike a month earlier. The trail was pretty rough, as hikers had come in without snowshoes or skis, and post-holed all over the trail. The deep holes can be dangerous, so we skiied next to the trail. At noon, we took a lunch break in the middle of the trail, and it was nice sitting in the sun.

We had just over a mile to our planned leanto, so we tightened up our boots and started down the steep downhill.

At first the trail was a nice gentle downhill. Just after this photo was taken, it became much steeper, and Jim broke one of his ski bindings trying to ski/turn downhill on very icy snow.

The binding was definitely broken, so Jim removed his other ski, and walked down the trail in his bare boots. It was only a half-mile to the leanto, and he didn’t seem to sink in very much. I was still on skis and having a slow time navigating the icy steep slope, but eventually I got down. We all arrived at the leanto at 1:30pm, and I thoroughly enjoyed taking off my pack and sitting down. We looked at Jim’s binding, and two of the three M6 screws had been sheared off. The third screw (lower left) was fine, so a plan was hatched to use epoxy and ski straps to make a temporary repair.

Jim fixing his ski with 2-part epoxy, hopefully it holds for most of tomorrow!

We had all afternoon to hang out, in addition to the usual tasks of setting up the tent, hanging up the sleeping bags, and getting water. It was warm and sunny, and a perfect last afternoon on trail. Before dinner we enjoyed a celebratory beverage, and reminisced a little about the past 16 days. It doesn’t feel real that it’s ending so soon. However, my mind was more occupied by the dual worries of crossing the wide (100ft) West Stony Creek tomorrow, and traveling the last 5 miles with a broken ski binding. Oh well, that’s not my problem…that’s future Jon’s problem! 🙂

Monday March 1, 8.3mi/13.3km

Silver Lake Lean-to (113.2/2060ft) to Abner Brook Campsite (121.5/1400ft) (NY)

Today was a late start, as the precipitation was forecast to end around 9am. Sure enough, it lightly rained and snowed until 8:30am, and we hung out in the leanto and ate a 2nd breakfast. 

We put on the packs and skis, and moved out at 8:45, and thankfully the snow had firmed up since yesterday. It wasn’t nice powder, but at least we weren’t sinking in and sticking to wet snow. A mile later, we came to Meco Lake, and of course decided to ski the very short lake. It was maybe 10 minutes of skiing.

The last few days had clearly been warm, as many of the small streams had opened up. They weren’t hard to cross, but they required a little more thought and planning to stay dry.

We came to the Godfrey Rd trail junction at 12:30pm, and enjoyed a sitting lunch. Apparently the old NPT (before 2014) used to start/end here instead of Northville. I was glad to have more trail remaining, I know I’ll miss it when it’s over.

We packed up after lunch, and continued south. The trail was harder to follow after this, and with more overgrowth. Jim’s spruce-whacking face:

A mile after the trail junction, we came to a tricky stream crossing. The bridge was of the narrow-log variety, and it was perched 6ft above the creek….no thanks. So we crossed the semi-frozen steam. The snow bridge deteriorated a little bit with each skiier, and I was last to cross. My left ski went into the stream, and though it was shallow, it was a very difficult position to extract myself from.

With some pole-grabbing assistance, I made it onto solid ground, and then side-stepped up the steep bank. We continued on, and I was thankful the rest of the afternoon was less exciting! It was party sunny all morning, and by afternoon the remaining clouds departed and it was very sunny. We sure do make nice ski tracks.

Usually by mid-afternoon we start getting tired and hit an energy lull. Jim is still enjoying his new 147cm BD skis!

The crossing of Abner Brook had another tricky log crossing. We found a way across on the semi-frozen stream without incident. Even though it was only 3pm, we decided to stop for the day here, as the next viable campsite was 2 miles away.  

Our kitchen architect is utilizing the design-build approach, while giving our eating quarters some finishing touches.

As the sun went down, it became much colder. I figured it might snow, and moved my pack (right) under the tarp. 

I had found a nice little water extraction spot, and I took a break tonight from water duties. Mark and Jim did the bucket filling and hauling from Abner Brook.

The view from inside the kitchen, sitting under the tarp. It became very windy, so it was nice being out of the wind.

We made our dehydrated dinners and some hot drinks (cocoa, cider, jello), and then quickly put everything away. It was so windy! I was so happy to be in the tent, it was amazingly warm with 3 people in there. I stayed awake for Mark’s entire reading of the book chapter, and then browsed my maps for a few minutes….we are so close to the end!

Sunday February 28, 0mi/0km

Silver Lake Lean-to (113.2/2060ft) (NY)

We woke up later, since we had nowhere to go today. Even so, everyone was awake around 6am, simply because we went to bed at 7:30pm the night before. I ate first breakfast, which was my sliced kielbasa fried up on the whisperlite stove and some improvised cookware.

Then, I ate second breakfast, and then a third meal that was nameless but consisted of cheese and M&Ms. The weather was still dry, so I went for a short ski down the trail for 10 minutes, just to get some movement in today. Eventually, it was time for lunch, and I cooked up my extra soup and cocoa.

After lunch, I might’ve accidentally taken an hour nap. Afterwards, we killed some time playing the dice game Blisters, and then Mark read a chapter from the Waterman’s book. This wonderful day of lounging and eating was capped off by dinner and then going to bed! Not many pictures from today, but it was a necessary and relaxing day.