Stranded in the Lost Creek Wilderness
My wife and I decided we wanted to get an early jump on the hiking season this year and I had an extra day off from work to use so we planned a 3 day (2 night) trip. I found a loop through the Lost Creek wilderness in Colorado - where we live - that looked fun and about the right length for our abilities, which is 22 miles in 3 days. We let a few friends and co-workers know where we were going but didn’t give a really detailed trip report to them. I had a map of our planned route on my blog and some people knew it was there. We were aware that snow might be a factor for some of the north slopes of the mountains at this time of year but figured we would make decisions on the ground when we were there.
We started on Saturday May 10th, weren’t able to reach the trailhead we intended to start from because we have a low clearance compact car, so we started from a different trailhead that was right along the same loop, but about halfway around from where we thought we were starting. Not discourage by this not-entirely-unexpected change in plans we started out Saturday and made it over Hankins Pass quickly and easily despite scattered snow flurries that never really formed any threat. Hankins pass was much lower and more vegetated than we expected, the snow was very moderate and easy to pass through so we thought we had picked a good trail to do at this early time of year. We camped low the first night outside the edge of the Hayman burn near the Goose Creek trailhead. The next day we began a beautiful trip up the stunning Goose Creek trail. This part of the trip was full of amazing sights and stunning vistas, huge granite spires and domes soar overhead at every turn. We had made about 8 miles the first day and about 8 mile the second day and thought we were on track for finishing up the loop on time.
The second morning we tried to get an early start, knowing this would be a challenging day. We had asked the one other pair of backpackers coming the other way on this trail how the snow was coming down through the last segment we were approaching they said it was “fine” and “not a problem” I was a little surprised but happy to not have to turn around and go back the way we had come based on their information. The third day started out long because we crossed a very cold stream because of a misleading trail branch that only petered out after the stream was crossed. So we lost our head-start that morning right away. Then it was a slow and painful hike up the north face of a mountain and we started running into deep snow drifts that had to be forged. At first we followed in the reverse footsteps of the other hikers who had passed us on their way down. But soon we were forging through snow that was thigh deep where they hadn’t made any prints. Apparently they caught the snow banks while they were still frozen solid and had just walked right over top of snow banks that we had to wade through the next day. Our progress slowed considerably, navigation was tricky but manageable as we continually lost the trail under snow but we knew which direction to go and didn’t hit any problems until nearly 5:00 Monday evening. Our plan was to continue down in the dark Monday evening if we were able to keep on the trail.
We lost the trail completely around 10,300 feet in deep snow in the woods and at least 4 miles from the end of our journey. By the time we realized we weren’t on the trail route anymore we were too tired to backtrack uphill and find it, knowing were probably wouldn’t find it anyways because of the conditions. So I decided to keep on following the glacial valley we were in, down because I ascertained we could get out of the wilderness area and cut across flat ground to our parked car from where we could get out.
Sun began setting on us around 6:45 and we saw the weather rolling in. We had been clambering down steep and rugged terrain for over an hour and had only reached 9,500 feet at this point. Seeing the conditions worsen I decided we couldn’t attempt to finish the ever steepening climb down the valley floor that night and found a roughly level ledge where a rocky spire connected to our steep slope to the bottom. We pitched our tent securely on that slanted and less than ideal location and decided to wait out the night and continue in the morning.
It snowed all night. In the morning it was still snowing. Visibility was about 50 feet and our footing looked terrible. Neither my wife nor I are experienced climbers or mountaineers, so we decided to call off our plan to get out right away that day. We began to get very scared, we didn’t have any water left in our hydration reservoirs, and food was running very thin. I knew we could survive for a while, but was concerned about our safety. I had to make the very humbling decision to call 911 and ask for SAR to come get us. We were very thankful we had a cell signal. We couldn’t get down from where we were, and were very doubtful about getting back up off this terrain safely either.
The Park county SAR team is all volunteer and they were very dedicated to finding us and getting us out of there. Unfortunately we were not able to accurately communicate with each other about where we were located. I had trouble properly identifying our location from the USGS Quad I had along, and they were battling the snow and low visibility on Tuesday. Finally in the evening we got another call from the SAR coordinator saying the teams were coming back in and we should wait out another night on the mountain since we were relatively warm, and uninjured. This was definitely the right call for them to make.
It was very demoralizing to wait in the terrible weather all day and then know you would have to wait through another cold uncomfortable night of sliding down into the puddle at the bottom of the tent. We had little more than a handful of trail-mix and dried fruit that day, and maybe a pint each of water that we had acquired by melting snow with our MSR Whisperlite. So not the most comfortable, but I know that this is more than enough to keep going on day one of a survival situation, and we had nothing serious to be concerned about at that point, but the uncertainty and the waiting can really start to get to you.
This morning, Wednesday May 14, 2008 we woke up and saw that the weather had cleared overnight and the sun was hitting the snow-free pastures in the valley 1300 feet below us. The SAR coordinator had told us to try getting out on our own if we felt confident about getting down safely. So we made the decision to pack up and head out. Before we did this we tried to call in and let them know that was our plan but our cell phone battery had finally worn out after the hard work it had been put through the previous day. So we couldn’t call out in the morning but couldn’t imagine staying in that tent for another day or another night of unknown waiting. So we melted a few more cups of snow, packed up, put on our quite frozen boots, and began working our way down. Working down seemed to be a much easier plan than trying to backtrack several miles to find a trail in our weakened conditions. We began winding our way downhill and all I can say is that God was guiding us the whole way down and letting us find the best path for us to scramble down through the morning, with very little backtracking and up-climbing. Eventually we came out onto flatter ground just like we had hoped and our ordeal was essentially over. We warmed up during hike and after several miles of level road hiking we came to where our car was parked very tired, dirty, and dehydrated.
The SAR team had already come out that morning and had parked right next to our car. They were relieved to see us show up safely. I feel very odd and a little guilty about calling in for SAR and then walking out on our own. When we finally were able to identify where we were at the SAR person we were talking to said they would have found us by this evening and only chance prevented them from finding us the previous evening. They gave us food and water and helped us calm down, and were so completely reassuring and friendly. I want to thank everyone in the Park County Search and Rescue team that came out looking for us from the bottom of my heart. The safety and security of knowing they were out there looking for us was a huge help for us in a very frightening situation. And it was still very possible we would have gotten stuck somewhere on the way down and needed further rescue anyways.
Some of my decisions during this situation were certainly not ideal. But a lot of luck and a lot of prayer made it all turn out OK.
So top awards for best gear in this situation goes to:
1: Sierra Designs 0 and 15 degree down sleeping bags, did their jobs superbly.
2: MSR Whisperlite stove is completely reliable and efficient.
3: Gaiters –Mine are REI, my wife’s are Mountain Hardware, but Gaiters were an absolutely essential part of our gear on this trip.
Things to do better: Snowshoes. Get a spot tracker (or a PLB). Bring along the GPS next time despite the extra weight. This could have saved a lot of time while communicating with SAR.
