Eagle Rock
The day started off cold and foggy. We all met up in the Home Depot parking lot, and after greeting each other, catching up for a few minutes, and admiring Matt's new tires, we all headed up to Old Stage Road. We aired down where the dirt meets the pavement, and then we started our journey.
As we got further into the mountains the fog got thicker. Old Stage proved to be full of potholes and quite muddy in spots. It was rivaling I-70 for worst road in Colorado.
After some time and some elevation gain, we broke through the fog into blue skies and sunny weather. Shortly after, we were at the beginning of Eagle Rock. The bottom had two water pools separated by a thin strip of dirt and mud. Jason took that, while Matt and the others opted for the larger pool of cold, muddy water. I chose poorly as that seemed like the more option with the most fun.
The trail was covered in snow, with week-old tracks barely visible below us. We set off. The last few times on this trail, we had gone to Mount Baldy trail and used that to head down. This was a tentative plan we had going into the day. Mother nature had other plans, and we didn’t make it halfway to that waypoint.
Shortly after starting the steeper portion of the climb, the tracks from the previous vehicle abruptly stopped. And suddenly so did we, and then Jason began moving again, only the wrong way. No amount of sawing at the wheel-and-locker combo was helping. Matt hopped out and hiked up to have a look. It was quickly decided that the only way we were going to make it would involve a lot of winching. It was pointed out that the previous group turned around just behind our location, as the tracks in the snow showed us. We opted to do the same.
Matt led the group back down to the main road and we stopped for a quick lunch. We discussed our options and decided that we were going to see how the creek crossing and start of Bull Park looked.
Snow three feet high was piled up on the sides of the road blocking access to the creek and the trail up to Bull Park. That didn’t stop Matt from trying out his new tires. He was able to make it across the creek (mostly). As we waited for Matt to get back on the dirt with winches at the ready, we all discussed how this day was a successful failure. In that way, even though we did not complete any trail we set out to do, we all enjoyed the day and the beautiful scenery and wonderful weather. Everyone was just happy to be out of the house and out in the woods. Luckily, Matt did not need help out of the creek.
As we descended the mountain back towards civilization that fog was surprisingly still there. We managed to get some wonderful pictures of the fog bank nestled in the foothills below us. We aired up at the same spot where the pavement meets the dirt, said our goodbyes, and departed.
Reports from Other Days: 12
Use the arrows or dots to flip through the previews of the other reports for Eagle Rock. Click one of them to read more and see all of the photos from that day.
