The Hike

Today is hike day.  This is sort-of the climax of this weekend.  Aunt Nancy requested that her ashes be spread on the trail to Herman Gulch as this is one of her favorite trails in the Rocky Mountains.  So we all decided to leave at 6:30am to give us enough time to get on the trail and especially to make sure we had enough parking.  Herman Gulch is a popular trail, so popular that it has its own exit off of Interstate 70 (or so it seems), and the parking area fills up fast on the weekends.

When I got up, Deb told me that she would not be joining us.  She did not sleep well last night and doing a trail as strenuous as this one was just not going to happen.

We didn’t quite make it out by 6:30 as planned.  It was more like almost 7:30.  Large groups are hard to get going, particularly early in the morning.  When we arrived at the parking area, it was already rather full.  We managed to get what appeared to be the last few spaces.

We piled out of the vehicles and gathered at the sign for the obligatory photo.

Herman Gulch trail is a strenuous trail, 3.5 miles long one-way, with a 1,671 foot altitude gain.  The trail starts out steep, levels out for a ways, and ends up even steeper.  It’s a beautiful hike, however, and I can see why Aunt Nancy loved it.  It checks many of the boxes.  A hike in the woods: Check.  Meadows with wildflowers: check.  A babbling stream: check.  Commanding vistas, a lake at the end: check, check.  Big elevation gain: well, maybe not so much.

The group separated rapidly into the faster ones (the younger set, who disappeared almost immediately up the trail) and several smaller groups of the rest of us, who ascended the trail at different rates.  For my part, some of the enjoyable moments on the trail were the rest breaks, where I could turn around and see the views opening up beside and behind me.  The rest breaks occurred more and more often as we ascended, so those views were enjoyed a lot.

The last half-mile or so was really steep.  Take a few steps, stop for breath.  Take a few steps, stop for breath.  This was not a place for a fast pace. It was plod, plod, plod.

The lake at the end was a treat.  Lots of rocks around the water and places to lay down and rest and enjoy the mountains towering above us.

And rest we did, our group on the rock getting larger as more and more people made it to the top. This was a great place to have a snack or an early lunch.

After resting a bit, I ventured out to explore the area around the lake.  A trail continued over the stream that came from the lake and headed towards the higher hills. I followed this for a while and discovered a meadow with a good mix of wildflowers and a commanding view of the distant mountains and the valley between them.

This was the perfect place.  At the trailhead, Julie had distributed Aunt Nancy’s ashes in little bottles to each of us with the instructions to spread them in an area that we felt Aunt Nancy would love.  I decided that this was the place.  Here at 12,000 feet, in some of the most breathtaking scenery I have ever seen, I opened the bottle and spread the ashes among the wildflowers.  I found out later that several others had done the same.  Aunt Nancy made her final journey up the Herman Gulch Trail.

We spent a couple of hours up there by the lake.  It took a while, but everyone that started out at the trailhead made it to the top.  Quite an accomplishment as some were suffering the effects of elevation just a day or two before.

The weather cooperated by not following the pattern of rain in the afternoon. It was a chilly start to the day, at 43 degrees, so the hike was started with several layers on.  The layers came off while hiking, then back on at the top as the wind was blowing and the air was chilly.  The rains came much later in the afternoon, making this a perfect day for this kind of hike.

After dinner we all gathered downstairs for a group picture. Since some of the group will start traveling home early tomorrow morning, it was our last chance to get everybody in.