Monday, Monday. Only two more of them before they start meaning something to me again! Summer is rapidly drawing to a close, and I, of course, am still dreaming about the mountains. I actually started making a photo book of our trip last night, and, after looking at the pictures again, it’s taking a good amount of restraint not to pack the car and head straight back. What can I say? I’m a mountain girl living in a flat lander world. Sigh.
The second best thing to actually being on the trail is talking ad nauseam about it, and, lucky for you guys, that’s exactly what I intend to do today! This post is going to cover day two of our six day backpacking trip through the Weminuche Wilderness in southern Colorado. If you’re just popping in, you can catch up on day one here.
Day two dawned with clear skies and good attitudes thanks to a good night of rest in a particularly good campsite. We knew we had a roughly eleven mile day ahead of us so we ate breakfast, broke camp, paused for another group picture, and we’re on our way.
Less than a mile in, we made it to Divide Lakes, and all of us were impressed by what a beautiful spot it was and a little sad to have missed out on camping there the night before. We knew we’d being coming back by on the last night of our trip, and all of us were set on making sure it was our last campsite.
Not far from the lake we came to the Weminuche Trail/Pine River Trail junction where we turned northeast onto the Pine. We stayed on that trail and followed the Pine River throughout most of the morning. It was fairly easy route with some small rolling up and downs, but nothing terribly strenuous. Of course, there were more than enough wonderful views to keep us entertained.
Around noon we came to Rincon La Osa Trail Junction, and we paused to have lunch on the banks of the Pine River before heading northwest up the Rincon La Osa trail. And I do mean up. We spent most of the remaining miles of the day on steady incline aiming for the Rincon La Osa valley. As a side note, as soon as we turned on to the Rincon, we saw a group of ladies out for a backpacking trip. They were the last human beings we would see until around two the next afternoon. One of the many things I love about this area of Colorado is the wild remoteness of it.
As our watches ticked closer to five o’clock and our bodies begun to feel the wear of the long day, we started to get very anxious to get to camp. After a long day of going uphill, we made it to vast open valley and hoped we were where we needed to be.
We walked off trail just a little bit to a really beautiful campsite, but, after much discussion, decided that our actual destination was, once again, about a mile up the trail. At that point, however, the clouds were looking ominous and everyone was tired and hungry so we decided to take advantage of the nice campsite we had found.
We were all exhausted and Caite and Alex were feeling a bit peckish that evening so everyone turned in early that night. The next morning we had a very early wake up call so we needed the rest!
And, since that was a big day with lots of pictures, I’ll save that for later in the week. Day 3 was one of the most beautiful we had on the trail so you don’t want to miss it!
In the mean time, I’m off to school to get some work done. It’s time to get back to reality! Have a great day!
Day 2
Outfitter Camp to Horse Camp just short of the Rincon La Osa Valley
Trails: Weminuche Trail to Pine River Trail to Rincon La Osa Trail
Miles: 10
Elevation Gain/Loss: +1600/-280ft.
Seriously, this summer has been so busy, and, as a result, it is flying by! John and I spent most of the weekend doing trip prep, but we did manage to drag ourselves out of the house Saturday night to spend some time with this crazy group.
