11.4 Miles
Little Seneca Lake
A pattern has emerged here in Wyoming: clouds by noon, rain at 2:30, cleared up sunshine a couple hours later, then rain all night. It rained all night. We got up our usual time and everywhere was wet which was a concern because of the bouldering-type hiking we'd be doing if we were to hike up and over the Knapsack Col alternate. After breakfast, Spins and I decided to go for it, I mean its supported to be the most beautiful section for the whole CDT(even though its technically not on it). We hiked down and to the left of Peak Lake, crossed over and started on rock scree trail some of which required strait down to the base of the lake maneuvering. Then on the other side of the lake we started our ascent towards Knapsack Col. The lake was at 10,500' and the pass was at 12,280' so we had a bit to climb in a little over two miles. It started out gradual with multiple trails to the left and right of the higher lakes and we chose the central trail after losing it up and to the left.
We continued slower as the grade began to rise and after a bit the trail mostly ceased to exist besides multiple dirt 'paths' leading here there and everywhere up towards the pass. Around ten in the morning the clouds rolled in and it looked as if storms may be earlier today then usual. If i so much as saw or heard thunder or lightning I wouldn't have continued up but luckily the cloud kind of just hung around then dissipated. We headed over to the right up a valley of boulders where we rock hopped up to the base before the really steep part of the climb. Now when I say ready steep I mean 60-70 degrees of loose rock. As a huge understatement we'll say it was pretty sketchy.
Going up was ridiculous and really challenging because there wasn't any trail to follow. Towards the top it got super steep and Spins and I overshot the pass to the right an extra forty feet up or so. When we climbed down to Knapsack Col the view behind me and in front was breathtaking.
Spins and I saw another couple of older guys snacking up here as we did the same and they headed down Knapsack Col first to the left of the glacier which looked like it basically just dropped of the face of the earth. It did...
Literally a strait down rock scramble with plenty of loose rocks was the route down about a thousand feet. You can see those two tiny dot to the left of Spins, those are the two guys ahead of (or I guess below) us. Spins freaking cruised down this thing fearlessly and passed those two before reaching the bottom. Meanwhile I was taking my careful precious time because this was quite possibly the sketchiest hiking I have ever done. We're talking dirt butt sliding strait down parts and grabbing for rock to stop you. It was ridiculous. After getting down the first section we cruised across a dirty glacier melt and over and around a knob to the left. We continued our boulder hopping down and over some more until we reached the river that fed the Titcomb Lakes.
We ate lunch around two as the storms clouds were building for their daily routine. By this point we had hiked a whopping four or so miles but given the difficulty and strenuousness I felt super accomplished...and exhausted. We hiked down to and around the lakes only for it to start hailing violently with thunder cracking above head for about an hour. At that point, it was just to much ridiculousness for one day and I was laughing at how absurd but awesome the day had been. The sky cleared the second I broke down to put my rain pants on, go figure and we hiked in an exhausted zombie-like state for the rest of the afternoon past some beautiful lakes and mountains around every turn until we stumbled onto the Seneca Lake Trail which will lead us into the town of Pinedale tomorrow. Today was one of those days you'll remember forever and J.Ley was right, Knapsack Col is quite possibly the most amazing part of the CDT (well not technically).
No comments:
Post a Comment