Day 2 Redstone Campground White River National Forest Carbondale, Colorado

I was awake early.  I enjoyed my morning coffee and was watching for the momma bear and her cubs.  Instead, I watched a red fox sniffing around at a campsite across the road.  It was too far away for a good picture.  He explored the bear box and the fire ring and finding nothing to eat, he slunk off into the brush.

Today we planned to take the Lead King Basin Trail.  We have this really neat book that lists many of the trails.

We set out at 8:30 this morning with our picnic lunch packed.  We had no idea what kind of adventure awaited us! 

We had to access the beginning of the trail in the town of Marble.  This town is aptly named.  There is a marble quarry here where pure white marble is cut.  The marble here was used on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington.

We passed Beaver Lake and our journey was underway!

At the start of the trail there were these signs posted…2 ½ miles into the trail was an area of extensive avalanche damage. 

We decided to go and take a look.  The ride was lovely. 

There is all kinds of bear food along the way.  Ripe raspberries, rose-hips, red, yellow, orange and purple berries, and lots of chipmunks!

Locals call the aspen trees “quakies”.  They are actually Quaking Aspens.  Today with the breeze blowing you could see the silvery leaves fluttering and well…quaking!

We arrived at the site of the avalanche and we were overwhelmed by the amount of damage we saw.  An enormous amount of snow came from very high on the mountain and toppled everything in its path.  The pine trees lay in a tangled pile like pickup sticks.  The Forest Service had cut a path through…a winch might be necessary! 

Much of the debris lay on several feet of compacted snow!

While Tim evaluated the trail ahead, I took pictures of the wildflowers.

Tim decided that he would like to try to get through the minefield of logs.  It started out ok and then it got harder…a lot harder!!

There were all manner of pieces of tree in the way.  Tim used a handsaw to clear part of it.  He drove up onto the log pile and there was a log jammed against the back wheel.  There really was not a good way to go backward…it was too late.  We were committed.  The only way was forward.  This is where our new winch came in handy…Kyle…we really could have used you here!!

We were able to winch the Jeep forward and then we were still stuck!  Tim came up with an idea to double back on the winch to help move a huge log out of the way.  This actually worked…at last we were free!!  I was standing outside directing Tim and operating the winch.  It was a little nerve-wracking but it was also fun to work together to make a plan and figure our way out.  When the Jeep at last was free and moving up the hill I was elated and I know I yelled out loud! 

The area after the avalanche was much easier to traverse and the scenery was beautiful.  We traveled up the mountain  on switchbacks and were treated to an aerial view of the damage from above…WOW!!!

We found the perfect lunch spot with 360-degree views…spectacular!!!  The blue sky, the mountains, the wildflowers, the waterfall, the patchy snow…

We were in Lead King Basin at 10,240 feet.

What we didn’t realize is that this trail dumped us onto the Devil’s Punchbowl Trail.  This Trail had an extremely high difficulty rating and is in fact very dangerous, several fatalities have occurred here.  We wouldn’t have chosen to ride on this trail but now our options were limited.  We certainly did not want to go back through the avalanche site. 

Fortunately, Tim is a very careful and good driver.  Slowly we made our way up the incline and along the shelf with steep drop-offs. We didn’t stop to take pictures because it was not okay to do so.  We were very grateful to come the part of the trail that was “the easy road through a scenic valley!”

We drove through Schofield Pass at 10,717 feet.

Past Emerald Lake…

Over a snow obstacle…yes snow!!

Finally, we arrived on smooth pavement in the town of Crested Butte.  We stopped for fuel and directions. 

We were able to take Route 12, Kebeler’s Pass a partially paved and partially graded but maintained road back the 60 miles to the campground.  I drove this part.  We stopped once to enjoy the view.

We left at 8:30 and returned at 5:30. We decided to go back to the Redstone Inn for dinner.  We were so terribly dusty and dirty from our adventure…that we showered first.  Tonight, we actually each had 2 drinks!  We were waiting for pictures to load for the blog, borrowing the Inn’s internet and so we even shared Bananas Foster for dessert!

Today was long but it was a very good day…we were able to work together to negotiate a tricky trail and we were rewarded by the gorgeous pictures that few other people get lucky enough to take!