Huston Park: to the State Line

Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest

(blue line, map link)

DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4

There was no drying things out the next morning. It was dribbling again shortly after I woke up and it kept it up as I packed, breakfasted, finished up, and headed out onto the trail. Rather than lifting, the clouds were dropping. Try as I might to get under them, they surrounded me and took away every remnant of view.

055: bits of cloud move down a canyon — Bits of cloud are drifting down the canyon from the saddle near camp.

I didn't have much left of the wilderness and, since the trail now shortcuts a part of old road it used to follow, I had less than I thought before the last step out. My plans along the state line were increasing. Really, why not take the trail all the way to the crossing and then go cross country to the monument I was aiming at? This would go past a second giving me twice as many chances of actually finding one. Plus "finishing" the state even if I'd just started it felt better.

056: rocky crest to the hills — I can see all the way to the nearby rocky crest of the local hill.

059: long, thin, pink trumpet of a flower — A very soggy new flower. This very light version of a scarlet gilia gets called "slendertube skyrocket".

060: orange slapstick in the fog — No nice signs marking this side of the wilderness. There are a couple of these orange slapsticks along the trail and more along the ridge.

062: wet bee under wet flower — A bumble bee takes shelter from the rain under a penstemen.

I stopped just short of the road to see if I could find a benchmark. All I found was Oregon grape full of berries. About the place where it should be, they had bulldozed a big hole to discourage attempts to use the old road the trail follows. The rest of the road is a loop for trailhead parking.

063: lake below through the trees — Clouds finally lifting a little and there's the Hog Park Reservoir.

Across the road, there's trail again. It climbs up along what looks like an old fire break then winds along out of the trees to eventually join up with some 4x4 road. It takes a bit of attention to follow once out of the trees, but that seems pretty standard.

064: grassy hill with more openings hinted at among the trees ahead — Grassy opening with hints of more ahead. The trail is easier to find on the side of a slope like this than along the hilltops.

066: bright red berries among happy green leaves — The gooseberries are numerous and ripe.

067: huge park — There's a huge park to cross with views of Hog Park Reservoir.

I got to thinking that if two chances to find a state line monument are good, then five are better. An old road heads south from the trail to the state line near another monument. I checked that it existed as I went past and it did. My plans had increased again.

068: cloud rolling over — Just watching the clouds.

071: stock driveway — Old stock driveway sign from when stock would actually be driven rather than trucked.

Shortly after that junction, the trail leaves the 4x4 road for a decommissioned road. Down it goes, heading east more than south for the border. The trees become heavily beetle killed at the lower elevations and there's been a lot of work to keep the trail clear. I started to worry about how much cross country would be involved in searching for five monuments.

072: decommissioned road — Time to loose some more elevation.

073: too many dead trees — Crossing FS-550, a good gravel road for all cars. This is an area of substantial beetle killed trees.

074: very tall and green meadow — This was another long, dry section since the creek just before camp. This meadow had bonus water, but the tall green made a soggy stretch in the light rain.

076: water held at the center of lupine leaves — The huge water drops gathered by the lupine leaves are a special treat. Knocking all that water onto my shoes as I pass is a special misery. (Poles help.)

077: mountain chicken! — Dusky grouse walking away slowly on the fallen beetle kill.

078: 1500 in rocks — So is that for southbound or northbound? This is right about the middle.

080: obscured views — Thanks to high tree mortality where the beetles have attacked, there's some views even from down low.

By the time I got to the crossing, I had decided I could deal with the cross country, even with all the beetle kill. Only a few spots had become a pile of impenetrable trunks. I'd also decided that even though the marker to the east wasn't marked on my map, there would have been one once. I was closer to that one than the one to the west and might as well go looking for it. That's six chances.

081: rock line on scruffy trail — A rock line and license plates mark the crossing into Colorado from Wyoming on the CDT.

I popped up a little hill to the east to find a campsite. So people like to sleep on the state line even though there's no water nearby? I headed easterly along a route that wobbled north and south a bit, but wasn't too hard except that a hole in my trouser knee did become a bigger hole in the knee. Oops. Eventually I came upon a circle of bearing trees with a post in the middle and a monument beside it. It was well marked and very extant.

083: state line marker — First state line marker for Colorado and Wyoming. 147 M is there.

The marker was just a baby! It is dated 2001, as are the bearing tree posters.

084: disk — State line marker set by the Department of Agriculture in 2001.

That's 1 of 1! I was feeling pretty good as I wandered back west to run into the CDT and turn north while it crosses back into Wyoming and then sticks close to the border.

082: similar to the south crossing — Crossing back into Wyoming. Wyoming has stuck a "Wyoming State Line" sign on this side.

As the trail turned north, I broke west and got myself to the marked spot, which was a total mess of fallen trees. Looking around it wasn't easy. No yellow posters were evident. It could have easily been buried. I wasn't feeling quite so good as I left the spot. Now I was at 1 of 2. I got onto animal trails that fed into an old road that made my travel west a lot easier. It swung south and I popped up and over a short ridge shoulder to find another bit of old road on my way to the next monument.

087: fallen trees with yellow flowers all over — Beetle kill and wind have been at the trees on the shoulder of ridge line.

088: bright flowers like a child's sun drawing — The yellow is bright and happy cutleaf ragwort.

The next monument should have been just up the hill from the road, so I climbed up and went wandering. This area was open forest with only a little undergrowth. I took longer to look here simply because it seemed like a place I should be able to find a monument. I didn't. That's 1 of 3 now.

089: open forest — The place of a fruitless search for the third state line monument.

090: metal frame tied 20 feet up a tree — The roads are remnants of logging. Presumably, so is this chair tied high in a tree.

So on I went along the road, then cut over to another road that was on my map and would get me halfway directly to FS-550 and Whiskey Creek, the only reliable water I had expected to cross for the day and where I expected to get water for camp and most the next day. There had been more bonus water in the seasonal streams marked along my path along the state line and I actually headed a little further off the side of the road to another seasonal stream west of Whiskey Creek to find my camp.

092: forest sign on good gravel road — Signs to mark the change of forest at the state line on FS-550.

094: grassy area — Large park just past Whiskey Creek. Easy travel until it turns boggy, then there seems to be no place to turn to stay out of the water.

There was plenty of water and it looked a little better than Whiskey Creek. I camped at the edge of a park in the forest where there were not so many dead trees that could fall on me. Finding a place where there were none seemed impossible. I noticed something odd just upstream and wandered off to find I was next to an automated weather station and probably some water monitoring. There is likely a much easier way there than the one I took. Finding a way across Whiskey Creek was difficult because it was slow and wide where I found it. My first sleep spot was wet from the day's light rain, but I moved to a drier spot that should work better. It was a wetter day than expected, but dribbling had stopped.

095: electronics — Scientific instruments for keeping track of the world just upstream.

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