Geneva Creek
We finished Slaughterhouse Gulch in record time, so we had plans to continue exploring. We had hoped to find a trail that circled Derringer Peak, but when we went around to the trailhead it turned out to be private property. We wandered around a little bit, but all of our options didn't pan out. In the end, we decided to check out Geneva Creek because it wasn't too far up the highway from Slaughterhouse Gulch.
Just like last time, it was packed with people camping in just about every available space. That meant for lots of traffic on the road. We waved at everyone as we worked our way to the intersection where we hoped to leave most of the crowd behind.
The rain clouds were threatening as we climbed up the narrow trail. We were about halfway to the top when we came to a large truck headed down in the other direction. It started to rain as we tried to figure out a way to pass each other.
It became clear that the driver of the truck was in over his head as he refused to get out of the truck and he refused to back up. We had figured out a way for all of us to get by each other, but he refused to do anything other than continue forward. Fear can make anyone act strangely, especially if you have your family in the vehicle. In the end, it became apparent that we would have to back our three vehicles down the trail to get around him.
We ended up having to back up quite a long distance with him practically pushing us down the hill with his truck. His son had mentioned that he wasn't an experienced driver in the mountains, so he probably didn't understand how difficult it is to get vehicles around each other in the mountains sometimes. He didn't thank anyone as he passed by us.
We didn't let it upset us, though, as we still had the best part of the trail ahead of us. The rain stopped as we got to the "Y" intersection. There were some people camping in that area, but everyone we ran into up there was happy and having a great time enjoying the mountain air.
We went up to the top of the mountain first. The sun came out and it made for some amazing pictures. We took advantage of the scenery, getting lots of good pictures of our vehicles in the sun.
We spent a lot of time up at the top, but eventually we went back down and headed over to the mines. It started to get a little chilly, but we all still wandered around to check everything out. Everything metal was littered in bullet holes, and we wondered how long ago that happened.
The scenery was gorgeous and we had the place to ourselves. We hung out for awhile, but we eventually went back down. The road by all of the campers had lots of people cruising around on ATVs but the traffic wasn't too bad.
We aired up at the picnic area near the trailhead, which was convenient. We had dinner in Bailey and the sun wasn't even down yet. It seemed like we got a lot accomplished in a short amount of time, which was pretty cool. It was a great day!
Reports from Other Days: 2
Use the arrows or dots to flip through the previews of the other reports for Geneva Creek. Click one of them to read more and see all of the photos from that day.
