September’s backpacking trip was a nearly 8 mile (round trip) stroll through part of the Lost Creek Wilderness. The trip originated as a planned 22 mile loop with a friend, morphed into a full-family adventure with another family, and finally ended up with just two of my children and me due to another child getting a bad case of strep the day we were leaving. We left our house around 2PM on September 26 and drove towards Bailey, CO .
The area where we hiked is dominated by pine trees, but has splashes of aspens throughout. We have had nice fall weather and it was about 75 degrees the day we hiked in. We even encountered some nice wildflowers along the way.
We had to hunt around to find a place flat enough to set up our tent (GoLite’s Shangri-la 5), but finally found a wonderful place a short distance from a small stream.
The evening was cool, but pleasant. We all actually slept pretty warm until about 3AM when the temperature seemed to really drop. It was about 45 degrees Saturday morning – couldn’t ask for nicer fall weather at an elevation of about 9,000 feet.
We hung our bear bag (only took me about 9 throws to get something that would work) and were happy to find it intact in the morning. Most of the trees go straight up with short branches so we had to find a leaner.
After breakfast we explored the area and took some photos of the great fall colors.
Hiking home
