(Continued from the last page.)

Although there were many long, dry sections of trail in the first 8+ miles I hiked, there were also a lot of shorter muddy areas and numerous snow banks to cross. The trail is not ready for bikes or horses yet, but it’s fine for hiking and running.

I just went through most of the snow banks and over the drifts. It was fun, it was cleaner than walking through adjacent mud, and it prevented trampling all the new plant shoots that emerge as quickly as the snow melts:

Cody played in almost every patch of snow. Note the new plants
that have popped up where the snow has recently melted.

I enjoy watching the new shoots come up and marvel at how quickly flowers like marsh marigolds begin blooming. I saw marsh marigolds where I don’t remember seeing them before. I think that’s because they’d already stopped blooming in those areas when I’ve been up there before in late June/early July.

Marsh marigolds

As in other areas of the San Juans (and the entire Rocky Mountain chain), the season has been delayed two to three weeks because of winter's heavy snow pack.

There were numerous early spring flowers along the trail. They aren’t as prolific or as tall as the late spring-early summer flowers I’ve seen up there in previous years but they are just as colorful and pretty:

 

 

 

The skunk cabbages fascinated me. I saw them only an inch tall in just-uncovered brown areas to two feet tall on sunny slopes. None are blooming yet. In sunny areas they can reach three to four feet tall.

 

 

There are lots of skunk cabbages along this trail.

As on my other hikes last week, I saw more snow and more water than ever before this time of year. The waterfalls were spectacular and there were more streams than previously, but none of the streams were hard to cross.

There were a couple creeks I wondered about until I saw them. The largest is a single stream (Lime Creek) at about five miles:

 

Upstream

Downstream

The other is a quadruple-waterfall-stream at about 7 miles. One of the upper falls is still under snow:

Three of the four falls

One of the lower falls

All the streams were narrow enough to step or jump across.

There were enough streams, puddles, and ponds along the trail today that Cody didn’t need much of the water he carried in his pack. He would have been fine without wearing it but I didn’t know how regularly water would be available when we started out.

 

 

What snow I encountered this morning was still fairly hard/crusty from sub-freezing temperatures overnight and Cody couldn’t roll around in it. He tried but just slid around.

I turned around about noon. The same snowdrifts and larger banks of snow were much softer in the afternoon so Cody had more fun rolling around in them.  

 

Oddly, the wooded areas didn’t have much snow. On this part of Segment 25 the treed sections are on the south side of the ridge below Bear Mountain, between 5 ½ - 6 ½ miles in. They've gotten enough sun to melt most of the snow.

The majority of the trail in the first eight miles was snow-free. I noticed a significant difference as I entered the "portal" to the hanging valley. It would have been a lot of work without snowshoes to go much further today. I was thrilled to get up that high; I had no idea what the snow conditions would be like.

View to the high basins

The high basins before Rolling Mountain Pass lie at 12,000 to 12,500+ feet, which is about the same as the Ice Lake basins a few miles to the north. From a distance it looked like less snow there than in the upper Ice Lake basins. Either place is difficult to access without snowshoes and ice picks right now, however.

There is also the danger of falling into unseen alpine lakes in either location because so much snow is melting. When you can see them they are gorgeous.

 

 

 

Photos continued on the next page . . . let's see what the hanging alpine valley looks like!

Happy trails,

Sue
"Runtrails & Company" - Sue Norwood, Jim O'Neil, and Cody the Ultra Lab

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© 2011 Sue Norwood and Jim O'Neil