“The mountains are calling and I must go.” -John Muir
This is the quote posted on the signboard of Lake City Community School (appropriately named “Home of the Fourteeners”). I must have driven by that sign a dozen times in the last few days and the irony strikes me each time. For CFI’s seasonal trail workers, the mountains are calling. Going to them, however, has proven more difficult than usual this year.
Did you know that Colorado received a lot of snow this past winter? I’ve heard some numbers, the largest generally referring to the San Juans, the location of my project this season, 500%, 800%, 1000% of the average snow water equivalent. No matter the exact number, there is a lot of snow still lingering in the high country. So much snow that this trail season is off to a bit of a different start for many of us.
A historic number of avalanches occurred this winter/spring all across the state. Many of the 14er trailheads are still inaccessible due to avalanche debris blocking vehicle traffic along FS roads. Multiple large avalanches in Lake City’s backcountry this winter covered roadways and deposited massive amounts of debris including large rocks and trees into Henson Creek and the Lake Fork river.
This avalanche activity combined with annual runoff has caused concerns of debris blockage. The Hinsdale County Office of Emergency Management and other groups have been working incredibly hard to remove snow and debris from the roads accessing Handies, Redcloud, Sunshine, as well as Wetterhorn and Uncompahgre. For up-to-date information about road conditions please check out the interactive map on the Hinsdale County website.
For the two of us based out of Lake City, accessing the peaks hasn’t been an option yet, particularly because of the flood concerns resulting from avalanches in the area. So instead, we’ve been doing everything we can think of that doesn’t involve actually being on the trail. First, we loaded up the flashy CFI truck and trailer and drove down to our seasonal base of operations.
Once we moved in a little, we unloaded our gear from the trailer and spent a day hauling purchased lumber. After that, we got permission to cut some timber on Forest Service land and starting prepping additional materials through felling trees and cutting the logs to a useful size.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way, as they say. Even though it hasn’t been the smoothest start to the fourteener trail season, we’re still out here, doing whatever we can until that snow melts, and we can get up high.
