Wow- what a lot of snow! Great start to the season 🙂
One of the things I love about living in the midvalley is the beautiful sunsets – here is last night’s! The midvalley part of the Roaring Fork Valley where I live is close to Basalt and about 20 minutes to Aspen.
Fall break came later this year so I was sceptical about the possibility of a fall rafting/camping trip in our beloved Utah location. We couldn’t do the trip last year so we really wanted to go. Luckily the weather looked good so off we went! It takes about 4 hours to get to the put-in from our home near Basalt; an extra 30 minutes if coming from Aspen. I was so glad we went! Two beautiful lazy lay-over days enjoying the fall colours and the sounds of the river as well as perfect conditions for the two days on the river. I love this trip!
https://bronwynanglin.com/2011/10/19/the-last-rafting-trip-of-the-season/
https://bronwynanglin.com/2012/10/17/the-last-raft-trip-for-2012/
We are so lucky in this valley to have so many talented musicians that I think sometimes we take them for granted. I just had the opportunity to see Bobby Mason and Friends at the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen. Many of these musicians play in local events and local restaurants where one can see them at no charge so I was interested to see them as a guest of a paying ticket holder! Wow!!!! This is their natural habitat; on a proper stage with backup singers! I felt very humbled and so fortunate to have been able to see this show.
This is my first blog post about a hike I can’t drive to from my house! Most of the hiking/rafting/skiing posted here is either right in the Roaring Fork Valley or within a 4 hour drive (6 to Lake Powell). Still it’s a short flight to Salt Lake City from Aspen, Grand Junction, Eagle or Denver and great for a weekend getaway! I had the opportunity to be in Salt Lake so as well as driving to look at the ski resorts I also did this amazing hike. The trailhead for Red Pine Trail (and White Pine Trail) is about 5.5 miles up Little Cottonwood Canyon. The hike itself is about 7.5 miles roundtrip including the upper lake. It is a really pretty hike to the lower lake. At this time of year there was quite a bit of snow between the lower and upper lakes so we lost the trail a couple of times and did a bit of scrambling to regain it! At the upper lake we met a girl who had just come off the Pfeifferhorn. She was wearing shorts but said it was cold and windy at the top! We were impressed as it looked really gnarly from where we were standing! A great hike – overall it took us about 5.5 hours from the trailhead to the upper lake and back. It would have been 4.5 just to the lower lake and back.
Our backyard is so beautiful. We had thought about driving back to Crested Butte to see the changes in this week of cooler weather but then two friends of mine were heading up Castle Creek road so I jumped in with them! This road leads off the roundabout on the way in to Aspen, goes past the hospital and then continues for another 11 miles or so ending just after the ghost town of Ashcroft and the Pine Creek Cookhouse. This is the road that one takes to get to the trailheads for American Lake, Cathedral Lake and Conundrum. It is also the way to 4WD roads to Taylor Pass and Pearl Pass. The fall colours were so spectacular that I came back again the next day and drove up the back side of Aspen Mountain for the views up higher!
 
The way from Basalt to CB via Hwy 133 to Kebler Pass is so stunning in the fall. It is about 2 hours drive from Basalt if one doesn’t stop for photos….. this time it took me about almost 3 hours to get there! We did get back in 2.25 hours though 🙂 Add an extra half an hour if coming from Aspen.
Lost Man is becoming an annual tradition 🙂 The lower trailhead is about 25 minutes from Aspen on the way to Independence Pass. It is not a closed loop and the two trailheads are about 3 miles apart so it does help to have a friend with an extra car for shuttle or be prepared to hitchhike back to your car. I prefer to drop a car at the lower trailhead then hike from the upper one back to that car. This is almost two months later than last year’s hike here and I am astonished at how much water there is!!!! There seem to be extra lakes where I didn’t see any before and the usual lakes and streams are soooooooo full. I love this high tundra country very close to the top of the Divide. Then the descent goes through an enchanted magical pine forest sprinkled with waterfalls and picturesque boulders. On the drive back to the upper car stop at Independence, now a ghost town for a glimpse into the miners lives.
Finally I got to go back to Carter Lake starting from the hard-to-find trailhead as I promised I would in my previous Carter Lake post:
https://bronwynanglin.com/2012/09/25/carter-lake/
This time we went with a group of friends which was lucky as we got lost almost immediately and almost gave up! But with so many of us looking for the trail we found it! We did some trail marking so it will be easier in the future. This time we found where we got lost last time. The creek crossing is almost impossible to see when looking downhill so we marked that too. Even then we almost got it wrong on the return trip so we did some more marking 🙂
The water diversion is so impressive. One of the group explained that they must have brought all the building materials through the tunnel and found the tunnel entrance which has a big garage door entry/exit. If this comes through the mountain from the one at the end of the road it is an amazing engineering feat. Next time we will go onwards to the next lake which is 1.5 miles and about 1000 feet higher than Carter Lake according to a GPS brought by a group member.
Coming back from Carbondale tonight on the back road after enjoying First Friday the light was so amazing I just had to stop and take pictures across the fields towards Basalt Mountain. Then crossing the Roaring Fork it looked just like a river of blood! So eerie….
Aspen Country 