Stevens Gulch

Late Friday afternoon plans were falling apart for the weekend. Thankfully, new ones were partially taking their place, but I needed to fill a void for Friday night into Saturday. Wanting another night of winter camping I drove to Bakerville on I-70 and started to skin up the road.

Near the intersection with Grizzly Gulch I headed off the trail and located a flat-ish spot that seemed sheltered from the wind. Deep powder made setting up the tent a bit of an effort, but by 6pm I was boiling water and enjoying dinner. I was camped far enough up the road that I couldn’t hear the interstate traffic, but I was still rather close to civilization as I could check email on my iPhone. I may have to wait until next month until I get a chance to camp far away from any cell phone towers.

My sheltered spot didn’t provide a great view of the sunrise, but I was shortly up and the mostly-clear skies made up my decision to head further up Stevens Gulch. Getting back on the road I found recent tracks from a hiker who later put on snowshoes and appeared headed for Grays and/or Torreys peaks. I only saw Torreys from the road before the bulk of Kelso Mountain blocked my views.

At the summer trailhead I stopped for a tea and sunscreen break on the foot bridge.

I continued following the snowshoer’s tracks until we breached treeline and hit the willows. With a few of Grays Peak and mostly just a lot of slogging ahead I didn’t feel inclined to push on to get a view of Torreys Peak’s southeast face.

After stripping off the skins I started down, finding mostly decent powder turns in the open slopes between the trees. All too soon I was back at the trailhead and would be cruising down the packed road.

Just below the trailhead I ran into a group of four who’d stayed at a private cabin nearby. They suggested I join them for some more turns, but I was mostly out for a touring day and the skinny rando-racing skis didn’t eat up the powder all that well. So I continued back to camp, running into one other member of their party who was hauling all the beer and couldn’t come up the night prior. Camp was soon dismantled and with a full pack I carefully made my way back down to the bottom of the road, passing and talking to a few other day hikers.

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