Backpacking in Lost Creek Wilderness

When: September 10th-12th, 2010

Start: Goose Creek Trailhead, Lost Creek Wilderness

Destination: Shaft House Area

Caitlin and I decided to finally get in a backpacking trip just as the Fall colors were starting. We decided to check-out a place that my roommate was just a few days before us as the scenery looked just amazing.

We took off late on Friday and drove to the trail head as quick as possible (lets just say the Honda Civic tore-up the last 14 miles of dirt-road to the trail head) and arrived to the parking lot with the sun just about to set and darkness setting in really quickly.

We took off down the trail moving as quickly as possible to try to take advantage of the last glowing hints of evening sun, but we quickly found ourselves hiking in the dark. The trail is relatively easy with the first chunk of it on a smooth hillside just above the creek. At one point it does climb far above the valley and with the looming trees (and moonless night) we encountered some seriously dark hiking. Out comes the headlamps and what seems like an eternity of rolling trail we eventually got to the turn-off to the “Shaft House”.

Relieved that we finally hit the turn-off we hiked-up this new trail with no idea of where we would camp. In the pitch dark we occasionally smelled some campfire smoke, hear some bumps in the night, and eventually set-up behind a massive boulder. The sheer darkness and absolute stillness of the night made it challenging to get our bearings.

Morning was an unbelievable site. Huge granite rock-formations everywhere with thick forest and the beautiful fall colors just starting to show.

We hiked out to a overlook over a massive valley with an incredible array of large domes, massive boulders, and a creek wandering through the middle. With the help of some guys that were camped nearby we learned that it was possible to get all the way to the creek bottom. We scrambled all the way to the far stream in the picture below:

Attempting the get to the creek bottom was a major event in itself. With a significant amount of rock hopping and scrambling (sometimes over great exposure), we had to drop through chimney’s, climb over knife-edges, do some sketchy jumping over crevasses, all while trying to pick out which route would be possible. Awesome stuff!

Once we were at the stream we were rewarded with a Wild Raspberry Bush!!!:

Hanging out down at the stream-bed (ie Andy falling into the stream):

On the hike out we found a little more direct route but had to take this insanely sketchy, rusted-out ladder that was precariously perched between a couple boulders (not bolted into the rock), above a pretty gnarly ravine. Here Caitlin shows her discontentment with me taking photos instead of holding the ladder steady:

Once back to the top we had to relocate our campsite to this one with a phenomenal view of the valley around us. Then off for more exploring.

Caitlin at the old Shaft House (they actually tried to pump concrete into the ground to seal-up all of the rocks to form a reservoir where we hiked earlier in the day; luckily they failed):

We snagged a sweet spot from the guys we ran into previously. Our campsite had to be one of the most scenic locations I have ever slept:

We built a fire on top of the massive rock formation and hung out looking at the stars in a perfect moonless night:

Hiking out of our camping spot was fun. We were completely protected on all sides by rock cliffs, boulders, and tight squeezes. Here is what we had to do to get out of there:

We hiked out with minimal water (the filter was not working well) and towards the end the heat of the day caught-up to us and made the last climb out of the valley very hard. Once back to the car (which was in direct hot sunshine) we raced out of there and headed down the dirt-road to where the road went over the river; we desperately needed to cool off and clean off the grime!

The drive home was a little different as we stopped at Zoka’s for lunch (amazing as usual) and then headed towards Breckenridge over Kenosha and Hoosier Passes as Caitlin needed to go buy some skis on pro-form (she picked up some new Armada JJ’s!!!). The colors were starting to look real nice on both passes and the drive was well worth it.