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Backpacking Jasper lake.

Posted on 17. Sep, 2009 by Derrick in Backpacking, Guinness, Photography

Every Labor day weekend Summer and I go backpacking. We originally had planned a car camping trip to Crystal City Colorado. My procrastination unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it changed our plans to backpacking instead.

I hadn’t backpacked in Colorado for 8 years, and I went a little overboard with preparation and equipment. Once again, I’m a former Boy Scout. I’ve had years and years of  “be prepared” drummed into my head. Even though we were only going for 4 days 3 nights, we were set for a 7 day’er. As Summer can attest. I’m an absolute wreck before trips, and until we actually hit the trail head, I’m like  a Schizo without the Haldol.  We left mid-afternoon and I had hoped to be at the trail head by 4pm. After a couple of wrong turns and a semi 4 wheel drive up to the trail head, we finally made it by 6! I was on red-allert, but all was well, we were finale backpacking.

On our way up to our first night at Diamond lake. We ran across several waterfalls that Guinness took advantage of.

A couple of small wrong turns and we were only about a mile away from our destination. But first we had several water crossings that are tricky to do with a Dog and his backpack.

When we made it to Diamond lake, we had to hustle to set up camp, eat, and hit the sack. We planned on getting up early so we can get over to Jasper lake for the duration of our stay. Guinness loves his backpack, but is an uncooperative bastard when trying to get it on.

Once we finally got our asses in gear we were on our way to the other lake. Since we kinda thew this trip together I wasn’t sure what to expect going from one lake to the next. I sure wasn’t ready for another 1000 feet in elevation though. Its a good thing that I didn’t know because Summer constantly has to be in the “know” on how many miles/elevation a hike or bike ride is. So when she asked me. I got to say “I don’t know” without lying to her.

We took our time and smelled the wild flowers, and we found so many cool things on the way.

Some of the items we found. Owl Pellets, which are the masses of animal bones, and fur that after digestion, an owl horkes it up. Animal droppings that could only be Coyote or Mountain Lion. And one of the coolest moments was when we saw a pair of red-tailed hawks hunting.

And then from the majestic to the bizarre. We came across these really fat grasshoppers on the top of the pass. They were the size of my thumb and when they kicked around they flopped around like drunken gymnast. Later we googled it and found out it was a cricket called the sagebrush grig (Cyphoderris strepitans). They appeared to be eating the elk poop. I apologize for the poor picture, but they wouldn’t stay still and the lighting wasn’t great.

After getting to Jasper lake we relaxed and took it easy. The hike from Diamond lake to Jasper lake is mostly technical terain and has a decent elevation gain. We explored a little to the end of the lake after eating a little to much.

The next morning I decided to show Summer the water falls and natural glaciers that fed jasper lake. But before we headed off, Summer watched the sunrise on her “warming” rock.

and then let Guinness swim a bit

Once you get to the end of Jasper lake, follow the water up the trail/game trail. It will take to three naturaly occuring lakes with glaciers feeding into them. This is what we saw on the way.

Once we got to the top the weather started to whip up some nasty wind. Summer said that she had seen enough of the little lakes and wanted to go back down. From this picture you can explore about another 3/4 of a mile up.

Once we found a nice place shielded by the wind we decided to eat a light lunch and do what we always do, take a family picture.

On the way down from our little day hike we came to discover two things that was going to make the rest of the trip interesting.

Guinness’ was having trouble sitting. I didn’t think much about it until the light bulb in my head went off. A co-worker of mine has Labs and she told me about “Cold tail” syndrome. Its when a Labrador over exercises or swims excessively in cold water. Both of which our dog did. It appears as though his tail doesn’t work at all. We could no longer tell if our dog was a “happy” pup. So for the rest of our trip we called Guinness “Broken Tail”

Notice I have food in my hand, and his tail isn’t wagging. This is positively the oddest thing I’ve ever seen a dog go through.

Summer had her own problems. Like I said. I’m an Eagle Scout. I always have an over abundance of gear. Ready for everything from a minor wound to a full on leg amputation. The scouts never covered menstrual cycles in their handbook. It never occured to me to always have tampons with us. With all of our hiking/biking/backpacking that we have done, In the 3 1/2 years we’ve been together, we have never been on vacation when “aunt flo” was visiting. The literal meaning of “on the rag” is officially going to be changed to “on the sock”

Lets just say that I’ve never been so happy to have extra cotton socks with us. With Summer using her backpacking rendition of a maxipad, she wanted to get home on our last day. So we put our head down and did the 6.2 miles home in just about 4 hours.

Aside from our minor afflictions, we had an excellent time. One of our best trips to date.

Tags: Guinness, indian peaks, jasper lake