The "2010 North Inlet Epic Adventure" ©

Last Tuesday, Laura picked me up at 7:00am to begin what would soon be known to us as The "2010 North Inlet Epic Adventure" ©. We headed to work so we could fill out paperwork, grab a radio, and pick up Vic's car so I could drive it over Trail Ridge Road. He and a friend were going to be day-hiking from Bear Lake over the continental divide to the Green Mountain Trailhead, and Laura and I were doing almost the opposite with an overnight on the North Inlet Trail so we could see Lake Nokoni and Lake Nanita before crossing over Flattop Mountain on the return to Bear Lake. I had offered the day before for us to drive his car over and then we would hitch a ride so we could all avoid any needs of planting cars on either end.

As Laura and I finished packing our bags, complete with our bear canister, Barry started looking at us with a funny expression on his face. When I asked him what was wrong, he told us that he was getting really jealous that he couldn't come on our trip. I asked him how long it would take him to pack a bag, but he just couldn't take off from work long enough to go on our trip. Dale mentioned that a drive over to check on the West Side office would still be working, so Barry grabbed the Blazer and he helped us drive over the top.

So there we were; Laura was driving the Blazer with Barry as a passenger, and I followed behind in the giant diesel truck. As I passed through the gate, L and B must have said something to Clark who was working there because he started making fun of me for being a ranger driving the diesel through a National Park and how ironic the whole situation was.

That drive over TRR was the beginning of testing my limits. I'm not afraid of heights, but I am most definitely afraid of falling. Being up so much higher in the big truck made the edges of the road even more steep. Luckily, I made it over the top, we ditched the truck, headed to the trailhead (via the CRD BCO), took beginning pictures, and headed on our way. We made it the nine miles to our campsite in pretty good time between the campsite checks, bull moose observations, and 1,020' elevation gain. We continued on another 7 miles total after dropping our packs so we could see the two alpine lakes with another 1,000'+ elevation gain.


When we got to the first lake, we were amazed at the pristine beauty of the scenery. The water was pure blue and the mountains that served as the backdrop were unsurpassable. We reached Nokoni first and that ended up being my favorite, but Nanita surprised us by its large size!

As we approached Nanita however, we noticed something bright blue that caught our eye...a tarp was laid down with another rolled over on top of it and anchored down with rocks in a way that looked like a body was underneath it. The rocks and tarps were intentionally placed, and it took us a few minutes to relax before we were able to poke it with a stick and find out that it was filled with air. The strangest part about the tarps was that they were right next to a sign that said "No Camping" but no one was around. We started shouting out, "Hello!...Is anybody out there?...We're taking your tarps!..." We were still spooked that someone was out there and we tried to radio in to ROMO to let them know what we were doing but found out there was no radio coverage as far back as we were. We decided to hike back to camp as quickly as possible since the sun was beginning to go down and we weren't sure what kind of situation we were in. About a half mile away from the lake in the direction of camp, we came across another blue object that caught our eye: a 2.5-gallon camp water filter. We spooked even more as we noticed it was intentionally hung over a log and in use--filtering out water for a camp somewhere surrounding us. We grabbed that after similar shouts into the trees and booked it towards camp.

By the end of our 16 mile hike day, we were starting to get a little sore and decided dinner and bed was the best way to go. We finally had radio coverage back at camp, so we called in to ROMO (dispatch) and let them know what had happened and that we confiscated three items from what we suspected to be an illegal campsite. ROMO asked if we needed any assistance or backup and we siad no, but then heard a radio contact from Theron, one of the West Side LE Rangers, who was on our trail about four miles away. He called us and let us know he was headed in our direction which made us feel SO much better!

We got into the tent around 8:00pm, planning for our hike up over the divide to Bear Lake the next day. As we were falling asleep by 9:00pm, we heard Theron on the radio at the campsite next to ours. We scrambled out of our sleeping bags, threw on our boots and wool hats, and climbed out of the tent to see him. After seeing the gear we had acquired, he told us that the Division of Wildlife had been up at the lakes doing some research and thought that it all might belong to them. We thought it was strange that dispatch didn't tell us that they were back there when we reported the gear, but were very grateful when he offered to bring them back rather than having to haul them over Flattop down to Bear Lake.

We headed off to bed for the second time, more anxious than before to get over the top and down to Bear Lake where we were planning on hiking the half-mile around the lake with our packs and trekking poles so we could wear our "I CONQUERED BEAR LAKE" t-shirts in a way that only the two of us can.

Wednesday morning, we woke up to soggy sleeping bags and tents from the rain during the night. After laying things out to dry a bit, we packed up and headed on our way sometime early morning. We said goodbye to Theron (who had crashed at our campsite in his bivy sack) and headed towards our next destination: the July campsites, 1.5 miles away, 1,200' elevation gain.

Past those campsites, we started the next 2 mile, 2,000' elevation gain section, while keeping an eye on the building clouds back to our left. We had to cross three snowfields that proved to be both mentally and physically challenging as we looked down below to the steep dropoffs on our side. As we finally made it to the very top of the steep stretch and past the switchbacks, we still were keeping an eye on the western storm. What we weren't prepared for was what happened next.

As soon as we reached the top, a giant cloud washed over from the east to west side like a tidal wave, to the point where we could barely see our trail anymore. The almost instantaneous whiteout forced us to turn around to get down below treeline because even though we were already to the top of the climb, we were going to be exposed in the tundra for the next few miles and couldn't risk that much exposure.

As we ran as quickly as we could down the slope with our packs on and crossing back through those snowfields, we reached treeline much sooner than anticipated where we came across a group of young campers with their counselors who were about to head up the now densly fogged in trail. We advised against travelling further in that direction and helped them straighten out the situation.

Throughout this whole adventure from the point where we turned around, rain had begun pouring and lightning and thunder were crashing above us. We had radioed in to ROMO to let them know our change of travel since Laura was on duty and they needed to know where she was, and throughout all that, Theron heard our situation too. It was really nice knowing he was around to help us out if we needed it, but we assured him we would be ok and have to hike out. His response was in the form of a question: "Are either of you vegetarian?" We couldn't have been more excited.

In the end, our trip ended up being 8 miles longer since we had to hike all the way out, making it a grand total of 32 miles in 31 hours (hike-time was only 13.5 hours) with a total change of elevaation of 8,000 (4,000 in either direction)!! We were soaked and hungry and almost got mauled by a mother moose protecting her baby, but made it out. The problem was that we didn't have a car at the trailhead. Luckily, we radioed dispatch and hour before we got back and they set up an LE (Law Enforcement) transfer over Trail Ridge Road. That was the absolute scariest drive I had been on over the top because of how fogged in the road was. We couldn't see the front of the car, not to mention where the road began and ended with its cliffs!

All in all, the trip was quite the epic adventure. I was supposed to go out the next night with Tom, but needless to say...that didn't quite happen!