Pickle Gulch
Three trails down and one to go to finish out the day. It sounded easy enough, but it wasn't. Impressive as it was to drive right to the trailhead of Eldorado Mountain early in the morning, it was equally unimpressive watching us try to find the Pickle Gulch trailhead.
Sometimes it pays to read the TrailDamage.com trail reports for directions to the trails. We did not do that this time and it cost us about 45 minutes wandering around on Missouri Gulch Road looking for the trailhead. We had almost given up on finding Pickle Gulch. We finally headed back to the blacktop and there we found a sign to the Pickle Gulch group campground. We thought that we would give that a try, and guess what we found? We found the trailhead and we were finally working our way up the trail.
The trail started out going uphill in heavy trees, and it wasn't long before we reached the only obstacle. The trail split here with the rocky area to the right and an easier bypass to the left. Cody decided to take the bypass and everyone else tackled the obstacle. Unfortunately, we did not take pictures of the rocks or of any of us going over them. I think we were just too happy to be on the trail.
The trail merges back together again shortly after the obstacle. We continued on past a cabin that had seen better days. Walt tried to find the Snowden Mine but was having GPS issues and passed it before he knew it. We'll have to look for it next time. We seem to do this trail every six years so we'll be back in 2015.
The group wanted to finish the trail in daylight this time so we skipped all of the spurs. We would have to come back to explore the whole area. There was a great view to our left as we rode along a ridge before we came across the old camping trailer that had been there since 2003 when we were here last.
It wasn't very long before we were at the buildings with equipment that still looked like they were in use, yet somehow it seemed to be closed for quite some time. This was the end of the trail just above the town of Apex.
We did all four trails just like we planned and we had a great time doing it. A couple of us went out for Mexican food and the rest had plans to head for home. It was a fantastic day with good friends.
Reports from Other Days: 3
Use the arrows or dots to flip through the previews of the other reports for Pickle Gulch. Click one of them to read more and see all of the photos from that day.
