At 4am I began hearing a loud scuffing and scraping noise. We had all the bedroom windows open so I figured it must be coming from outside. Sounded like a large plastic container on the gravel driveway. The trash container. We had noted the bear-resistant trash container when we got here and hadn’t thought about it much further. Well, now it’s probably resisting a bear.
I got up and looked out the window but could see nothing in the inky darkness. I went to the front door and walked quietly onto the upper level front deck. At nine feet above the ground, I felt pretty safe. In the starlight I could make out the Jeep and something a bit blacker than the blackness next to it, and perhaps some other blacker object by a nearby tree. The sounds had stopped by this point. I turned on the porch light but succeeded only in blinding myself.
Later, when I got up, I could see the trash container on its side in the driveway with the lid still closed. The bear had to find its meal somewhere else.
Looks like today will be just like yesterday with lows in the 40’s and highs around 70, and probably rain in the afternoon. So we planned the hiking for this morning and perhaps some more driving this afternoon.
The hike for this morning was on the Pika Trail, a loop trail that rises above the tree-line for a bit and offers great views of Pennsylvania Mountain and some other more distant peaks. Aside from the 260-foot elevation gain, which we’re still getting used to, it’s a relatively easy trail. And the views were great, kind of what you expect out here.
From here it was nine miles to Mosquito Pass. Piece of cake, right? The first six miles were easy. Just a washboard dirt road with rocks and some large craters filled with water from last night’s rain. Then it turned and climbed steeply up the side of a ridge and the road surface became nothing but large rocks.
So our Jeep was earning its keep. We ground up the hill in low gear, with Terry having to step out a couple times as a spotter so we could avoid damaging the vehicle.
On the way up we let a pickup pass and we talked to the driver briefly. He told us he comes up a couple times a year to spend some time by the lake just up from where we were. He called it “special”. We saw where he turned off the main road and followed up a much narrow two-track for perhaps a half mile until we came upon Oliver Twist Lake. This is obviously a popular spot for those that can make it here. Several stone fire rings could be seen around the lake, and two other vehicles were already here, with a couple guys fishing.
This would be a great place to have lunch. We parked in a level space next to the lake and enjoyed lunch in the cool air. At 12,100 feet in elevation, there was still some snow on the ridges quite close to us.
We walked around the meadow for a bit, climbing a small rise overlooking the lake. At an exclamation from Jill, we looked over towards a stand of huckleberry oak bushes along the lake. A lone moose was there, grazing on the bushes, probably around a hundred feet from where we were standing. This was an unexpected treat. He seemed unconcerned, looking at us for a bit, then returning to his grazing. I managed to get a few good pictures of him.
Just like yesterday, the clouds began to gather and we felt a few spatters of rain. We were still over a mile from the summit of Mosquito Pass, but we thought this was a great destination. We were told the road from here was even worse, so we turned around and headed back down. The road was equally challenging on the way down but at least we knew what to expect.
As we were driving back to the cabin, it began to pour. Seems to be the pattern around here. Sunny and cool in the morning, with rain starting mid afternoon. We’ll plan tomorrow accordingly.
No comments:
Post a Comment