Mother Nature doesn’t fuck around, and she has a big hand in things up here in the mountains. Some people come here to have fun exploring the wilderness and end up finding stuff they never imagined.
Unprepared hiker in hoodie found ‘extremely hypothermic’ in Colorado avalanche chute.
My first attempt traversing from Bear Lake back to Moraine one day in early June 2014 taught me a valuable lesson about it. There’s still plenty of snow everywhere that time of year, so hiking can be a little iffy, with many opting for cross-country skis. The trails are well-marked for the most part, and I’m like, it’s sunny and warm, so whatever.
The tourist area at the lake and nearby was crowded as usual, but thinned out considerably by the time I got to the top of the rise heading out, where there was nobody in sight. In retrospect, talking to those two rangers heading in from the trail was a subtle warning I didn’t realize at the time. I met them skiing in at that point and the only other people I saw all day before getting back to the lake were two Germans skiing towards me as well, seven hours later.
They stopped and said hi, asked me where I was going, if I had sunscreen and water, yada yada. They’re looking me up and down as I stand there in ballcap, cargo shorts, sweatshirt and hiking boots (typical tourist getup). The one says “Make sure to take the north fork on the other side of the snowfield.” I reply, “Sure thing, I think I remember it from last time I was up here with the girls.” It looks alot different in July.
Spring squalls blowing through occasionally at that elevation don’t really mar the day’s weather outlook overall, but for maybe a half hour or so. However they make following snow-covered trails almost impossible, for me. I should’ve turned around right away, but it wasn’t that bad, just windy and a few flakes melting almost as soon as they hit, or so I thought. Throw in spots where trail signs didn’t even matter because they were still buried, and it gets a little sketchy. Even the best hiking boots only go so far in those conditions. I was a little nervous the first time I reached for the iPhone, but it was getting signal and I appeared to be no more than a couple hundred yards off the trail on the south side of the snowfield at that time.
It was already clearing up, so I headed towards the trail, down through a big snowfield (imagine that) when I suddenly stepped in it – literally – up to my waist. The ground was undulating in that area, so I was able to struggle through, finding shallow spots to traverse and occasionally sinking in again – for about an hour. Now remember, it’s 62°F ambient, but I’m probably pre-hypothermic by the time I get back down into the trees finding a big rock in the sun. I sat on the rock for a couple hours trying to decide what to do with no GPS signal. That’s close to where the Germans found me sometime later, after my socks dried out and I saw them skiing by, about halfway down the mountain. I hadn’t been more than a few miles from the lake the whole time, apparently taking the wrong fork.
The only saving grace was GPS and time. Without enough of one or the other, I might’ve been done, or at least sitting by a fire all night before starting over in the morning. Lesson Learned: If it doesn’t feel right, it’s probably not. It gets cold and dark quick up there. Retrace steps BEFORE you get lost. Solving problems before they happen is generally a better way to go.
