In May 2002 we decided to hike to Red Deer Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness before they started charging parking fees for the summer, and before the crowds hit. Of course, it was already getting crowded at the trailhead, but we headed up anyway. We made it about 2 miles, and the snow was still really deep. We crossed a creek and the snow became REALLY deep. Of course, we left all the people behind at that point, but the snow was REALLY deep, and we didn’t have snowshoes. We ended up sliding across the snow on our backs just to get back across the creek! Needless to say, we didn’t make it to the lake. We did see some people doing some backcountry snowboarding and skiing. That was crazy. The people were up on these massively tall and steep mountains…and they just skied down them. It scared me just watching them. And looking at the map, I couldn’t see any trails near them, so they had to have hiked in a couple of miles just to get to the mountain.
[mapsmarker marker=”110″]
