One of my closest friends growing up was moving away the summer before our senior year of high school. One day he invited me to go camping with his family. It was sort of our last hurrah before he left so I accepted. That week, we made all the preparations and I was over at his house almost every day to help prepare for the trip.
We were going to Taylor Lake, Colorado, about a five hour drive away. His parents would be sleeping in their camper but Jake and I, along with his brother and his brother’s friend would be in a tent. I still remember the drive in. It was the wettest summer we have had in years and everything was green. The Lake was full and the river flowing into it was moving quickly. As we descended down the pass to get to the lake valley we looked over the water and the grassy plains surrounding it. To our left was a scene out of a movie with the light pouring over the banks of the water and reflecting off so that it hurt to look at it for too long. To our right were massive peaks still capped with snow even in July, glacial from years of continuous packing. The peaks gave way to hills, and hills to small bluffs which rolled all around the valley. It was the definition of pristine.
We followed the river upstream on an old dirt road until we found a good spot to set up camp. We knew the park was popular for fishing, camping and ATV riding. Jake’s parents even brought some four wheelers for us to explore on. And that’s what we did the whole first day. An abandoned mining town, Taylor Lake has several abandoned shafts that are fun to look at. Obviously we didn’t explore in them, we were better Boy Scouts than that, but it was fun throwing stuff down them and listening to how far they dropped.
The whole first night, it rained on the tent. This is one of my favorite sounds in the world and I have never slept better. The next day however, the crowd began to show up. You couldn’t hike for more than ten minutes without being passed by an ATV or another group of campers. Jake and I decided we wanted to make this last trip something to talk about so we went back to our site mid morning and packed up our bags. We had run into a ranger or trail guide earlier in the day and he told us about an old ATV trail that had been washed out because of the rain and was no longer passable except on foot. He said it led to a small lake and no one was camping up there because of the trail.
We told his parents which direction we were going, grabbed a tent and some sleeping bags along with some matches and a tarp. For food, all we brought was two protein bars, a can of baked beans each, and our fishing poles and we set off. Feeling adventurous, we hiked off the trail, but always keeping it within eyeshot; a technique known as a handrail. We literally just picked a hill and started climbing.
A few hours in, the trail was still visible but seemed extremely far away because we had climbed so much. Our legs burned from the incline and just over every hill was another one that reached slightly higher. Around dinner time, we had been walking for about six hours and there was no sign of the lake anywhere. The snowcapped peaks were a lot closer, but behind us was nothing but miles and miles of dense forest. We hadn’t seen anyone in hours, we had found the isolation we were looking for.
After downing the protein bars, we decided that if it started to get dark, we would find the first flat place to camp out where we could still see the trail and just find the lake in the morning. Right before the sun began to set behind us, the trees were getting smaller and scarcer. The diminishing light had us both nervous that we wouldn’t be able to set up camp or find firewood so we said we would climb over the next hill and we what we could see. As soon as we reached the top, it was as if the world opened up before us. There was the lake. It was small, only about two hundred yards across at the widest par, but it sat right at the foot of the snow capped peak at tree line as if someone though it would be funny to put a lake way up where all other water is frozen. You should have heard us hootin’ and hollerin’! We had made it. With just enough light left we got the tent up and found some dry wood, which wasn’t so bad since it hadn’t rained up that high in a few days. With the fire burning we sipped our baked beans straight from the can, like free men. They might as well have been a gourmet meal. The next morning, we were not in any hurry to leave, after all, it was all downhill from there. So we plopped ourselves down and cast a line each. And wouldn’t you know it, we each caught some small lake trout. Talk about a feast.
Eventually, we figured his parents would worry if we weren’t back by dark so we packed up and moved out. We took the washed out trail back- we had already accomplished what we came to do. Our feet moved us lower but our spirits were never higher. We had done it. We found out later the trail was something like 6 miles to the lake but our route was definitely longer because of topography and we gained something like two thousand feet in elevation. It was quite an experience. The perfect send off for my friend, and a great story to tell at dinner that night.
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