Ruby Lake, Never Summer Mountains
Wondering, What is Wilderness?
Made it. Breakfast on Long Island and dinner at my campsite on the Baker Gulch Trail heading into the Never Summer Mountains for a 7-night backpacking trip. It was great to be pissing in the Pacific Ocean watershed.
When I was 13 we visited Rocky Mountain National Park on a family trip. At a viewpoint somewhere along Trail Ridge Road, a ranger pointed out the Never Summer Range. My memory is that he told us that no one had ever been there, not even Native Americans. Of course people have been there, so I am not sure exactly what he said, but to a kid with dreams of wild places that is what I heard and ever since, the Never Summer Mountains have held sway. I heard what I wanted to hear. In my teenage mind wilderness did not include people. I was steeped in the language of the Wilderness Act. “A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Those were the places I wanted to go.
Ten thousand years ago, Clovis Paleo-Indian hunters followed the receding glaciers into these mountains. People lived there, they had minimal impact but they were there. The remoteness of the Never Summers helped to limit their numbers and effect on the land. The first people of European descent arrived in 1820, where they met the Ute who had migrated into the area in about 1200-1300.
By 1870 the Utes were gone, either killed or moved to a reservation. Miners arrived in 1879 and soon found out that the geology, geography, climate and natural wonders that made this place so beautiful did not equal enough gold and silver to make mining economical. As mining declined the Never Summers transitioned to the tourist trade aided by the creation of Rocky Mountain National Park in 1915. The Never Summers became a designated wilderness area in 1980.
The morning hike began uphill and The Grateful Dead sang to me, “the first day is the hardest day, don’t you worry anymore.” After a few hundred yards my heart was racing and my lungs gasping. It was already time to stop and rest. There was no way to rush, the altitude was having its effect. Top speed was about a mile an hour. It took most of the day to go the 4 miles to the unnamed alpine lake that would be my next campsite. The only real scare came at the second stream crossing. Not wanting to risk a soaked boot by jumping from rock to rock, I took them off, threw one boot over, no problem. I threw the second boot over, no problem, at first. Then it slowly but surely rolled downslope into the rushing waters and disappeared. Panic sent me scrambling into the freezing water like a young bear trying to catch its first salmon. Luckily the boot was sucked under and caught in some roots. If my only problem was a wet boot, there were no problems.
Soon after, I arrived at the campsite. The lake faced a wall of mountains that were splashed with snow. The meadow was spongy and flecked with reds of Indian paintbrush and yellows of marsh marigolds. A strong wind rippled the water. Moose droppings and tracks were everywhere. It is always good to be in a place with moose sighting potential. The Utes would have disagreed. In her book, Ethnography of the Northern Ute Anne M. Smith was told the Utes “had a great fear of them. They believed that a whiff of breath wafted from the moose would cause an illness that would result in death if not promptly treated by a shaman. They also said that a moose standing in the water could trap an Indian walking along the shore by causing waves to come up and draw him into the water to drown”
They would have been safe in the Never Summer Mountains. There were no moose back then. Moose did not live in this part of the Rockies until 1978 when they were reintroduced. My sign of wilderness is actually a sign of human intervention.
Despite the overwhelming beauty there were a few beginning-of-a-trip worries. Would I get homesick? How much would the altitude slow me down? Would my knees hold out? Did I have enough food? Would snow block the trails? The afternoon was spent resting, reading, writing, watching the views and making dinner. Dessert was a brilliant sunset. The dark, blue Rocky Mountain sky faded into a light blue, making the line between mountain and sky a hazy combination of colors. The orange afterglow from the setting sun slowly crept up the eastern mountains until they stood in the shadows. My worries faded with the sun.
The next day’s plan was to move on to Parika Lake, with a side hike up Baker Pass. The trail junction was nowhere to be found so it didn’t take long to reach the lake. Despite the short distance, the 10,000 foot elevation made it challenging and rest was welcome. The lake sat at the edge of tree line and was still rimmed by ice at the outlet. Snow surrounded the far side of the lake and small clumps of trees dotted the landscape. The mountain tops were closer and just as the Utes moved to higher elevation every summer and so did I.
A welcoming committee of marmots and golden mantled ground squirrels wasted no time in greeting me. The marmots kept a slight distance but the ground squirrels were determined to chew on anything, everything. Rocks thrown at them did little to discourage their efforts. It was a bit unnerving to be surrounded by such salt-crazed rodents. They are a creature living in constant panic but determined to get at my backpack, their hearts beating like a drum. Given the squirrels are only active 4 months of the year it makes sense to be frantically finding food.
With the whole afternoon in front of me, I decided to climb Parika Peak. As with all mountains, it was higher than it looked, but each step’s reward was longer views and more mountains. The summit gave me 360 degrees. The east looked across Kawuneeche Valley into Rocky Mountain National Park where Longs Peak dominated the range. To the west the view took in the mountains of Utah and Wyoming. Looking north I saw Baker’s Pass and contemplated a cross-country adventure to make it a loop hike, but opted for spending more time on top. A small herd of elk grazed in a meadow down below, some eating, some chewing their cud.
Dead trees made up a large proportion of the forest. My reaction was sadness and anger that climate change was the root cause. It was a harsh realization to accept that the warming climate and lack of precipitation was allowing mountain pine bark beetles to kill vast numbers of trees in their search for food. I later learned, that as with all ecology, it was not that simple. Bark beetles are native to the West and have shaped forests for thousands of years. They are part of the system. The pine forests can regrow and may even lead to more diverse forests. There is evidence that the surviving trees will be more resistant to future outbreaks of the beetles. So maybe it is not quite as bad as it looks, but it is still bad. Climate change is affecting the Rockies in other ways. Spring snows melt 2-3 weeks earlier. Warmer temperatures give invasive species an advantage. The timing of natural events is thrown off balance, flowers may bloom before butterflies are ready. Sadness for what is lost, anger for the government’s inaction and guilt over my role shadow my mind. My carbon footprint for this trip comes out to 5,000 lbs. so I need to remember and make a donation for a carbon offset when I get home. While this knowledge breaks my heart, the beauty that still surrounded me eased the pain.
I put my focus back on the present. Wherever snow had melted spring arrived. A crayon box of colors grew around me. Life wants to live, even in a place with Arctic conditions. The plants are a perfect fit to this place. Tundra flowers have a variety of strategies to survive the six- week summer. It is not a matter of luck. Some take the path of long, slow growth, others store the majority of their biomass in their roots and take advantage of symbiotic fungi to gather more nutrients. There are others with leaves adapted to block UV radiation and at the same time do not stop photosynthesis. Many grow low to the ground out of the wind. My favorite is alpine avens. To lessen the competition they produce a chemical that stimulates soil microbes to take in nitrogen thereby depleting the soil and making it harder for other plants to grow. One must walk carefully given that a single footstep can kill. They are not adapted to us. It was an easy afternoon on my island in the sky.
Getting back to camp took me down the other side of the peak to the base of Fairview Mountain. Almost back to camp, a clucking sound stopped me in my tracks. Various animal possibilities ran through my mind. Could there be frogs up here? My eyes scanned the ground ahead of me. But then something moved inches from my feet. It was a ptarmigan. The chicken like bird was mostly brown with a just few white feathers to blend in perfectly. If it had remained still and silent I would have stepped on it. The ptarmigan was not the least bit scared and just walked slowly away on its feathered feet and I did the same.
Despite protection efforts while I was gone, ground squirrels made off with the sponge and chewed on my waist belt. The trees were so small there was no place to hang a pack, a small price to pay for being able to camp above timber-line.
Afternoon became evening and sleep came easy. I did wake up at one point and crawled out of the tent to take care of business. Golden mantled ground squirrels, however, wake up about every 16 days during hibernation to pee. It was before moon rise and the view of the Milky Way was breathtaking and every other superlative. There were so many stars, it was hard to pick out any of the simple constellations. It is hard to believe much less comprehend, that the white gauzy stripe is billions more stars instead of some optical illusion. The view of the night sky is the same now as it was when the Utes walked these mountains. It is one place where the past looks like the present. Even if a star has burned out it will take light years for us to know. However as I re-read this essay it occurred to me that in my excitement of seeing history in the present. I forget about the satellites circling the earth. There is some level of human impact at every point on this trip. It is impossible to escape.
The morning got off to a great start simply by the fact two elk worked their way across the small rise in front of my campsite. I took care of morning business and watched them. They walked slowly, eating as they went either unaware or uncaring of my presence. I was getting psyched for the climb. It has been awhile since I had a physical challenge that truly tested me.
I picked small goals along the trail and worked my way up one step at a time. About half way I looked back to see the lake shrinking and a moose standing in the water. It appeared out of nowhere and a welcome excuse to sit. The moose walked slowly in the manner of all moose and came out of the water to feed on some plants growing near the shore. At one point it sat down, then got up and went behind a big rock. Even from above and with little cover the moose disappeared into the landscape being clumsy and graceful at the exact same time.
It was time to move up to the ridgeline. The snow I had been staring at ended up being a 10 foot vertical wall. With micro-spikes as crampons and hiking poles as axes. I did my best ice climbing impression. The first try left me sliding down to the bottom of the snow bank. Maybe later in the day when the sun was higher and the snow was softer and I could dig deeper steps. On the second try, I managed to claw myself to the top.
There was a perfectly shaped rock to sit, relax and enjoy the fact there was no need to turn around. In a mad rush for nectar, butterflies were fluttering all over. If there was any reason to think sunflowers were not well named one just had to look at how every single one faced the sun in the exact same way. I joined in their worship.
The moose was gone or out of sight. I checked each clump of trees and wondered why some spots have trees and others do not. Some combination of the slope, wind, snow, soil, luck, and water all conspire to give some seeds a chance and others not. A huge shadow crossed the ground as a golden eagle flew over. A raven gave chase in the same way crows harass red-tails back home on Long Island. My attention drifted from one wonder to another.
The potential of mid-afternoon thunder meant it was time to move on. In the distance sat the next major landmark, Bowen Pass. The trail was laid out in front of me, a long downhill followed by a long uphill. Signs of bighorn revealed their presence, but there were none to be seen. My slow, but at least steady pace brought me to Bowen Pass by early-afternoon. My companions were two ground squirrels who wanted the straps on my hiking poles in the worst way. The wind kept the bugs away which made it a great place to sit. Below the pass Ruby Lake sat there nestled at the foot of its namesake mountain about a mile away. It was an easy invitation to accept.
The only problem, a large bank of snow blocked the trail. Option one: climb on the snow bank and slide down. Option two: climb up the mountainside and around. I opted to climb up and around and skip the slide down, unsure if I would be able to stop sliding in time. Slow and safe was the new motto at 55 years.
A spectacular campsite sat on a small ridge. On one side was Ruby Lake, edged in snow and ice. On the other side the view took in a series of wet meadows, perfect moose hang out. There were also marmots and ground squirrels, lots of them and even more fanatical than their relatives at Parkia Lake. I stayed vigilant and even hit one marmot with a rock by accident, well pretty much by accident. They were not to be denied.
As the sunset, bats flew in erratic control catching insects. The marmots, ground squirrels and I went to our respective dens for a good night’s sleep. At some point in the middle of the night coyote howls filled the air. During my nightly Milky Way gazing, a shooting star flashed by. The coyote song and the shooting star were over quick like a sparks from a campfire, but the memory will last.
Morning greeted me with a mirror image of Ruby Mountain reflected in the lake. The water was completely still with no betrayal of wind. It was a morning well spent just wandering around the campsite, checking the wetlands for moose, washing up, reading, eating, and staring. I even sat on a small iceberg. There was no rush. The only downside was trying keeping the rodents at bay. While packing I took inventory of the damage done. My phone case, first aid kit, and hiking poles all had teeth marks on them. They even ate the mesh off my favorite hat.
On my way out, two male moose stepped into the wetland and began to eat. One had a small set of antlers, the other was graced by a full set. The younger male walked off to the north and into the woods. The older male kept eating for another 20 minutes or so and walked off in the opposite direction. Both melted into the forest in the way of moose.
It was all downhill for a mile and a half, all the while knowing I would have to regain elevation to get to Bowen Lake. After a mile or so the trail turned uphill. My body had become better adjusted to the altitude but it was still a different pace than back East. Much to my relief Bowen Lake appeared suddenly on the edge of the woods. One side was forested and the other bare rock which formed the base of Cascade Mountain. Snow melt gave birth to streams whose echoes made them sound bigger than they actually were.
The next day an early morning departure for Cascade’s summit was required to get as much time above timberline as possible before the threat of afternoon thunder and lighting. Just as on the other mountains, the cell phone worked I was able to call my wife. As I waited for Karen to answer the phone, a mule deer, came up and crossed over about 25 yards in front of me. Without much experience hearing someone on a cell phone the deer jumped at my voice. It was good to know all was well at home and also strange to know all was well at home while at same time a sky full of mountains spread out in front of me.
The phone was surely part of this trip and thinking about how it fit into the experience was complicated or at least in my mind. It raised questions that could not have been asked just a few years ago. Who should I call when I can call anyone? Is there anything wrong with reading on an iPhone, compared to a book? What about listening to a podcast or watching a movie? Where is the line? Is it okay to listen to music while I hike? Somehow it all feels like cheating. Now that my miles will be fewer and there will be more down time at my campsite, more entertainment may be needed. Whatever I decide is okay, is okay.
My pack contained one cell phone, one rented satellite phone, one satellite texting device and two backup batteries. All told the cost is somewhere in the neighborhood of $2000 and weighed a couple pounds. Communication with Karen over the years has gone from none at all to where I can get in touch any time with at least one of the devices. At some point one phone will do it all. Karen and I will be able to talk as if I was down the street.
I have mixed feelings about the change. Karen is more comfortable and it does make the trip safer. On the other hand the stress of equipment failure is not fun and the expectation of communication adds a different worry. The devices take away some of my faith in the goodness of the world because the reason to have them is based on something bad happening here or there. On the other hand the phones keep me connected to my other world when I am in this world.
Does a cell phone change a wilderness to something less? On Cascade Mountain the internet was working so well, I used some websites to learn more about alpine wildflowers and read some accounts of hiking in the Never Summer Mountains. Does that give me more knowledge or distract me from learning from my own observations? In the end, cell service and internet make wild places less special and unique and more like back home. There are no longer as many places to be truly disconnected. If I wanted I could pay the cable bill and check my email. Even if human impact on the land is minimal the cell phone changes it all. It will never be what it once was, as Karen likes to say when things change, it is a new normal. It is not just the place that makes a wilderness it is the way we behave in that place. I could choose to leave the cell phone home. What we do and how we act also defines a place.
The sky was filling with grey thunderheads which meant it was time to get back to timberline in case a quick exit was needed. I sat down where the trail dived down into the forest to grab my last bit of alpine. Soon after thunder in the distance, chased me down trying to remember if taking off my glasses was one of the safety precautions I read about. It was a pleasant evening at the campsite and a conversation with the first people I had seen on the trip.
For the final day it was six miles to the last campsite. Which gave me options along the way. The choices were either take the side trail to Blue Lake or hike straight out and spend some time on the LuLu City trail or check out the ruins of the Wolverine Mine. I couldn’t decide so I let the day make the decisions and it did, in the form of a steady rain. The rain kept me walking right past Wolverine Mine and the trail to Blue Lake. The idea of a night in a hotel crept into my head but to paraphrase Robert Redford’s line in classic mountain man movie, Jeremiah Johnson when replies to the suggestion he leave the mountains, “I have been to a city.” I said to myself. “I have been to a hotel” and decided to stay out for my last night, despite being completely soaked.
With my head down trying to outrun the thunderstorm, I only stopped once to rest and appreciate the uniqueness of Bowen Gulch. It is one of the best stands of old growth left in Colorado. The abundance of rain, no kidding, and lack of accessibility equals 600 year old trees that can be as much as 5 feet in diameter. Most of the Never Summer Range was protected in 1980 by the Colorado Wilderness Act, but not Bowen Gulch. Instead the forest was sold to Louisiana-Pacific Corporation in 1988. People chained themselves to trees to protest. It worked, the gulch became part of the Never Summer Mountains Wilderness. Thank you tree huggers.
The sky finally cleared with half mile to go. I rested by a columbine-filled meadow. Like animal tracks and scat, altitude can be measured by flowers. As a trail crosses out of the national forest and into Rocky Mountain National Park, there is the site of what once was a long cabin. In the mid-1880’s Al G. Warner built a store to sell provisions and liquor to miners. It would have been a great place for a drink.
Back at the car my plan was to walk a bit of the LuLu City trail and have dinner before going back in. The hike to Lulu City, an abandoned mining town, was part of our family folklore. It was a story told over and over again, the heat, the distance, getting lost and the fact that my mother jumped into the Colorado River to cool off. I didn’t have the energy to get far. I stopped to watch an elk feeding in a small meadow. Here the Colorado River is about 8 feet wide. It could be any of stream flowing out of the Rockies, but it is not, this river grows to cut through canyons and mountains. So much of why I was there at this moment could be laid at my mother’s feet. I found a striped rock to bring home as a reminder. This would have been the perfect place to put her ashes and I wished I had risked bringing them in my carry-on. She would have been able to become part of the Lulu City trail but she would be carried to the Grand Canyon, another one of her special places. My mom would have been worried and excited for me and my return to the Rockies. She would have liked the cell phones.
Back at the trailhead it was dinner time and on the Baker Gulch trail to my first night’s campsite. My plan was to get some sleep, get up hike out and take my time driving back on Trail Ridge Road. All was well until the 4:00 am rainstorm soaked the inside of the tent. Going back to sleep was not happening, I packed up and hiked out. In the predawn light I took a shower with Colorado River water. My head ached from the freezing rinse. It must have been really hot that day my mother walked right into the Colorado. In the dawn’s light I drove down along the Kawuneeche Valley and spotted one moose and a herd of elk that included some calves. It is exciting to see big wildlife. However these symbols of western wilderness are a function of human intervention. In 1978 24 moose from Utah and Wyoming were released into the Rockies to establish a population. Prior to that only on rare occasion did a moose wander into the Rockies. With few predators, the elk and moose population continues to grow. They are overgrazing the willows that grow along the waterways of the Kawuneeche valley. This means the beaver population has declined. Fewer beavers means fewer dams. Without dams there are fewer ponds. These ponds provided habitat for a variety species. It is complicated.
The rain ended and the clouds shedded off the mountains. I was pleased with my decision to forgo a hotel room. A warm shower and TV vs wet sleeping bag, cold shower, moose, elk, mountain view of sunrise and clouds clearing is an easy choice, it was not even close.
I realized in my rush to pack up in the dark and rain, I left behind an old t-shirt my mom used to wear and had given me. It had petroglyphs on the front and was worn soft from many nights of camping. It was not a bad place to leave it and the irony of leaving something of hers behind did not escape me.
The short answer to the inevitable, how was your trip? Would be: it was a combination of all I hoped for: amazing scenery, wildlife, solitude, physical challenge and adventure. A longer explanation would explain that the “wilderness” that lived in my mind for 40 years did not exist. It never did. The Never Summers have been shaped by water, ice, wind, wildlife, time and yes, humans. This wilderness is a place people have lived for thousands of years. To ignore that, is to ignore reality. This knowledge did not diminish my experience, it brought a deeper understanding of this place. If wilderness and people are completely separate than I do not belong either, I would not be part of the Never Summers or any other wild place. I like being a small part of the Never Summer Mountain’s story.
I would admit to some unease and even discomfort, but the moments of exhilaration from stepping on a mountaintop, being there the moment a golden eagle appeared like magic or watching butterflies dance on sunflowers erased any doubt and got me dreaming of the next trip.
A Natural History of the Intermountain West, Its Ecological and Evolutionary Story Gwendolyn L. Waring
University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City 2011
An Environmental History of the Kawuneeche Valley and the Headwaters of the Colorado River, Rocky Mountain National Park
Thomas G. Andrews Associate Professor of History University of Colorado at Boulder October 3, 2011 Task Agreement: ROMO-09017 RM#CESU(Cooperative(Agreement(Number:(H12000040001