WBO 2008: Seven Day Lake City Backpacking

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Team Pork Gets Their Boots On!

Team Pork completely kicked it up this year in a seven day backpacking Wilderness Based Orientation hootenanny along the Continental Divide near Lake City. Team Pork consisted of seven rocking individuals destined for greatness: From Virginia, we had Joseph; from Oklahoma came Robby; from New Mexico we had Justin; from the woods of upstate New York came John, and from Oregon came Eric. Our instructors were Terry O’Neill of Denver and Rob Rouse of Virginia.

We came together Friday morning as strangers, and left Thursday afternoon as friends, relationships forged in the fire the first night out as we brainstormed and worked for hours cooking what may have been the tastiest hunk of pork loin known to man. Yes, it was food that made the trip, and friends, helping each other out, communication, and honesty, along with a healthy dose of hard work, blisters, cold wind and rain.

Everyone in the group had been backpacking before except Robby, who was eager to jump right into it. However experienced we all were, it was a challenge for us to deal with the weight of our packs, loaded down with food that was most definitely not freeze-dried, and the little problem of Colorado’s famous thin air. Keeping in mind the low elevation origins of Team Pork, we eased our way into the experience, starting low and slow, gradually working our way up to a few big mile days, high camps, and 13,000 foot summit climbs.

We backpacked in good style, eating dinners such as Thai stir fry, pizza, couscous and pork, chicken alfredo, tuna melts, and gumbo; breakfasts consisted of pancakes, breakfast burritos, lox, oatmeal, and granola; lunches were more simple but hearty – fresh tomatoes, onions, peppers, cheeses, lunch meats, sausages, honey, nutella, peanut butter, jelly, tortillas and pitas, and even mac and cheese with tuna. Chocolate and GORP flowed like, well, water in the streams, which we actually had in abundance, and made many a fine drink with our supplies of hot cocoa, lemonade, Gatorade, tea and coffee.

Click here for more pictures of the trip!

The Trip

Our route went over the river and through the woods, up and down and up again, sometimes on trails, sometimes not – we had easy walking on open tundra, difficult bushwhacking through endless willows, and sections of tricky scrambling up 45 degree talus slopes. We started at the Cataract Gulch trailhead, near the ghost town of Sherman, right off the famous Cinnamon Pass road, several miles past the second largest natural lake in Colorado, Lake San Cristobal. Along the road we hiked to our first camp at the base of Square Gulch, which is blessed with an incredible waterfall that we could see from our campfire. Day 2 took us up Cuba Gulch, giving us an up-close glimpse into the mysteries of the forest, where flowers rioted, mushrooms and lichen returned fallen trees to the soil, and the power of water flowing over granite for millions of years carved deep moss-walled chasms. That evening Eric, Rob, and John went up for a side hike along the flanks of Half Peak, taking us above treeline for a view of the endless mountains surrounding us. Day 3 took the entire group to the Continental Divide, where we ate lunch and celebrated, then down to a beautiful alpine camp in the Middle Fork of the Pole Creek, our first true backcountry camp. That afternoon, Rob, John, and Eric snuck off for a quick hike to the top of Point 12,654, where we saw our first elk herd. The next day we walked up a great trail along the Middle Fork back to the Divide, then along it a mile until we reached the top of the West Fork of the Pole Creek drainage, which we took down to a most perfect camp in what we all agreed was the most pristine part of the trip. We sat down that afternoon in the field outside our camp with cups of blue spruce tea and watched a huge herd of elk roam up and down the valley, running away from the menacing howls of coyotes. We saw hawks circling above, found bones of various animals, and even met a hiker who’d been photographing two bears less than a mile away. That night we all hit the sacks early, in order to wake up at 4am the next morning for the highlight of our trip, a moonlight hike up 13,220 foot Greenhalgh Mountain to watch the sun rise. After this most glorious event, we left the summit, found a grassy spot out of the wind, ate breakfast, built a snowman, and napped for two hours at 12,500 feet under perfect skies. The rest of the day was spent lounging around camp, which we stayed at another night, playing cards, reading, napping, and eating. Night 5 was for many of us the most enjoyable sleep, as the group slept out side by side under the stars. Day 6 brought us pancakes and the longest hike of the trip, down West Fork, up the main Pole Creek back to the divide, for a cold dip in an alpine lake, and a healthy hoofing down Cataract Gulch with rain and lightning in hot pursuit. Our final camp was possibly the prettiest, in view of two fourteen thousand foot peaks across the valley, nestled in a grove of old pines right at treeline. We lit a fire, cooked a mighty gumbo, ate the most non-traditional cheesecake ever, and told ghost stories that chilled us to the bone, scaring us all into our tents for the final, boogie-man free night. Our trip came to an end on day 7 with an all-downhill walk along Cataract Creek, where we came back to the world of flowers and trees and abundant waterfalls everywhere we looked.

It was an amazing experience, beautiful and humbling. We learned to be grateful, to leave the past behind and go forward with faith, to trust others and ourselves, to stay positive and to know that there is always something great waiting for us around the bend. This poem from Robert Service brings the message home:

The Land of Beyond

Have you ever heard of the Land of Beyond, that dreams at the gates of the day?

Alluring it lies, at the skirts of the skies, and ever so far away.

Alluring it calls, oh ye the yoke galls, and ye of the trail overfond.

With saddle and pack, by paddle and tack, let’s go to the Land of Beyond.

Have you ever stood where the silences brood, and vast the horizons begin?

At the dawn of the day, to behold far away, the prize you would strive for and win?

But ah, in the night, when you gain to the heights, with the vast pool of heaven star spawned?

Afar and agleam, like a valley of dream, still mocks us – the Land of Beyond.

Thank God there is always a land of beyond, for us who are true to the trail.

A vision to seek, a beckoning peak, a fairness that never will fail.

A pride in our soul that mocks at a goal, a manhood that irks at a bond.

And try how we will, unattainable still – behold it – our Land of Beyond!