Roosevelt National Forest, Kreutzer Nature Trail
Friday morning, Conor and I drove up Hwy 14 to hike up Mt McConnel up at 8000ft. It was not to be a particularly long hike at only 4.6 miles round trip, or hard hike with only 1400ft altitude gain, but as luck would have it we would still fail to make the peak.
Across Poudre Canyon, looking North
Our time-window to complete this hike was pretty limited thanks to my work schedule. With only 2.5 hours we set a pretty quick pace up the first half mile or so before the trail began to get very tight. It was hard to keep track of and the trees and rocks slowed our speed dramatically. We hiked another half mile, much of it down hill, before seriously questioning where this trail was leading us. We stopped to compare Conor’s GPS with our map and it became apparent that we lost the trail and were likely on some game-trail.
The view East, down Poudre Canyon
We re-traced our steps to a point we were 100% sure that we were on the proper trail, but by this time we lost too much time to go for the peak of the mountain. Instead we settled on the 2-mile, Kreutzer Nature Trail (we were already on it) by not taking the turn to head up to the peak. While still a nice trail, the wind had been taken out of our sails to go all the way to the top.
Next time we will pay more attention to where we are and the trail we are too follow. Bah!
