The lost creek wilderness!
Do you realize that you are not, in fact, allowed to bring hang gliders into national wilderness areas? Why not, for goodness sakes? I mean, if someone really wants to haul a hang glider up and down mountainsides, by foot (wheeled vehicles are not permitted), then climb up a tree and fling themselves and it off -- who are we to stop them? Honestly.
The segment starts out following an old road through a dry, dense pine forest.
But it soon dips through a series of small, well-watered valleys, thick with aspens so enormous I couldn't reach around them.
This segment should be renamed. No longer shall it be called ‘four', but rather, ‘mosquitotown.' By mid-July, most of the biggest swarms of bugs elsewhere on the trail have vanished, but not here, oh no, definitely not here. You'll be treated to mosquitoes up your nose, in your socks, stuck to your glasses. If you slow down – to rescue a boot form the mud, for example, or to attempt to do some laundry – the bloodsucking horde will amass to life-threatening thickness. Hikers who find your body, hours later, will believe you were slain by vampires. You do not want that.
Because of this airborne and pursuing menace, I made my best time so far – 11.3 entire miles in only ten hours. Yes, that is correct. Toddlers move faster; indeed, wheelchairs navigate stairs more quickly than I manage equivalent climbs. Guess it just goes to prove that pretty much anyone, no matter how out of shape, can complete the Colorado Trail – even at the handsome pace of one mile an hour.
At least finding the way is easy -- there's pretty much only one trail, and since only hikers and horsemen pass this way, everything is very well-marked. This is the turnoff at 5.6. Kind of hard to miss.
After the big climb, glimpses of Lost Creek's winding park are welcome indeed.
In Colorado, 'parks' are wide expanses of inexplicably clear grass and shrubland, bordered by dense pines.
Trickling little streams, as perfect as if they were installed by landscape designers, feed into Lost Creek.
The route ahead, from the lookout point at 14.6.
Guidebook update suggestions:
~2.0
For the next three miles or so, little streams are everywhere, turning whole sections of the trail into sucking mud puddles. Hope you've got those sandals – and extra bug spray!
5.0
Steep switchbacks up the mountainside.
8.9
Camped here, across the creek, near the trees. A very pleasant spot, with potential fishing from the meandering stream.
13.0
Though the guidebook calls this section boggy, many improvements have been made to the trail, and aside from a few muddy bits, it wasn't nearly so bad as the area down below.
14.5
New forest service gate.
The elevation profile for this segment is pretty much correct.
----> Onward, to Segment 5!
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