August 6: East Fork Boulder River to Pentad Lake

Picturesque Lake Kathleen.

And sleep I did...until 8 AM. Guess Iwas more tired than I had thought as I totally slept through my alarm which I had set for 6:30. A pleasant surprise... no bugs, not that I didn't notice a lot the night before, but still, it was nice not having to deal with the little bastards.

I finally got off at 9:20 but still hadn't a clue as to where I should go. Should I go to the Lake Plateau tonight or via Columbine Pass and get there in a couple of days? Eh, whatever. After about 45 minutes of easy uphill hiking I came to pretty Lake Kathleen. The guide book said there were some places to camp here, but I couldn't find anything that looked remotely flat enough to pitch a tent.

Once back on the trail I didn't stop again until just after 11:00 when I grabbed a snack and swatted a few flies. shortly after that I came to the junction of trails 28 and 128 which meant it was decision time. Columbine Pass or Lake Plateau? Screw it, I'm going up to the pass and get some views. The constant uphill hiking through the forest was starting to piss me off---I needed to get above the tree line.

Lake Columbine.

An hour and a lot of climbing later I still hadn't seen a soul but I did arrive at Lake Columbine. If it hadn't been so early in the day i would have been content to set up camp along the shore somewhere. A very pretty lake surrounded by grassy hills and the pass on one side, forest on the other. At least I could SEE the tree line from here and decided to do lunch. I took close to a 45 minute break munching on Pringles and peanut butter before I noticed some weather starting to build to the north. It looked like I had about 2 miles and some more climbing to get to the pass so I figured I'd better get a move on.

The next two miles were undoubtedly the best of the trip. Once I got a few hundred feet above the lake and trees things started to look a lot more interesting. There was still some snow up on the green, grassy slopes which made for an interesting contrast. The trail faded a bit in places thorugh the grass but was well marked with cairns every hundred yards or so---huge cairns. I scooted off the trail a few times to get some better views of the valley below and to the east. It all looked pretty good and I again made metal notes for future trips. I thought for a bit about camping up here. There was a melting snow field for water and nice cushy grass to pitch the tent. Why not? It was also exposed so I nixed that idea in favor of safety.

View looking north from Columbine Pass.

Just before 3 PM I arrived at the Pass, which was nearly as pretty as the previous few miles, but was nice just the same. Below lay Favonius and Pentad Lakes. I knew one of them would be my camping spot for the night. now to figure out which. The poor weather was still building, getting closer so I didn't have much time to dally. I took a few pictures and sat down for 5 minutes before heading down to one of the lakes.

At 3:30 I had already bypassed Favonius in favor of Pentad where I found a good number of possible sites---all of them small. One, however, was better sheltered than the rest and I managed to squeeze my Cloudburst in what little space was there. It was looking like the foul weather was going to pass by to the north and west, and in fact, it did.

Pentad Lake.

I decided to walk down to the lake to do some laundry, filter water and wash up before dinner. As usual, I brought my Therm-a-Rest and maps down with me and relaxed for a while once my chores were complete. After looking at the maps i thought it might be fun to do a short day tomorrow and set up camp near Diaphonous Lake, then go off trail a mile or so and climb Chalice Peak. Would I have enough time to get that in and get out on time so i could pick yumi up from the airport? I didn't think so but didn't rule it out, either.

After dinner it was time to take a walk up the slope behind me to see if I could find the source of the small stream running just to the north of my camp. While I didn't get up to the snowfield I did work off some of my dessert.

Once I got back to camp I could see the trout rising in the lake and decided to sit down by the shore for a while. This didn't last long, however, as the mosquitoes decided to come out for the only time during the trip. Too lazy to run up to the tent for some Deet, I occupied myself by killing the little bastards---all 117 of them before retiring to the tent a little after 8.

I spent another hour poring over the maps and writing in my journal. I pondered climbing Chalice Peak and again decided it was probably best not to go off trail by myself. I also determined that I was making very good progress and began to wonder how short my hike would eventually be. I also began to lament the fact that I failed to pack my Tom Clancy novel and purposely did not bring my fishing pole. Had I brought the book I almost certainly would have stayed out the full five nights instead of killing time hiking longer miles during the day. Another lesson learned.