Holy Cross Wilderness Trip August 6-8, 1999

Report

We left Denver about 10:30am. on Friday and headed to the mountains outside of Vail. We made one stop at a Wendy's in Silverthorne and then we continued on to Vail. At Vail you go South to Minturn and then just outside of town up an eight mile bumpy forest trial road. We found many people already at the trailhead campsite and parking lot in the early afternoon.

We got packed up and then traveled on a 3.5 mile slightly uphill accent on the Fall Creak Trail to Lake Constantine. On the trail we found a couple other backpackers along with three forest rangers who where busy cutting out trees which fell over the trail. The trail its self was fairly muddy and it looked as though the trees had some type of beetle kill going one because of the number of trees which where down in the forest. The ground was well covered with thick under brush due to the mild summer and a rainy couple of weeks. At Lake Constantine we crossed the river at the bottom of the lake and made camp on a fairly high platue. We setup camp and then went on a hike down to a 60 ft. waterfall. The night was warm for us in our tent but it rained a large part of the night.

Saturday morning we got up and packed up for a leisure hike back to the trail head where we re-packed. The walk back to the truck was filled with interesting conversation and spectacular views. At the truck we re-packed some gear, ate some lunch, and headed up the Half Moon Trial to east river (2.5 miles); or the main camp site for climbers to accend Mount of the Holy Cross. The hike up was grueling but the views were great. Once on top of the the pass we went down some very steep switch backs to the river in the valley below. On the hike down the switch backs, we got some great views of the Peak. The hike also offered a good look at some water falls coming down for a high mountain lake (bowl of tears). We crossed another river, using rock, where our prevous creek crossing involved using a couple logs. We setup camp after finding a place among several other campers, as this area was quite busy. We were very tried at this point and the mosquitoes were ferocious so we ate early and went to bed.

Sunday morning we got up at 5:00am. and tried to meet our secondary objective of the trip which was to climb Mount of the Holy Cross. The trail up was very steep and the section above tree line was just a walk threw a boulder field. We made it to about 13,200 where a good view of summit could be seen which was about 1.5 hrs. away. We had heightened concerns about making it back out of the valley with our gear later in the day, not to mention the strain of the two days previous of backpacking on our knees. At this point we got some good pictures and headed back to camp. At camp we quickly packed up our gear and headed up the trail back to the car. On the hike out we ran into a group of hikers with alpacas carrying their gear. The trip was fun and we spent much of the time on the move.

Directions

FALL CREEK TRAIL - ACCESS FROM VAIL

Travel west on I-70 to Exit 171 for Minturn and Hwy 24. Exit here and turn right onto Hwy 24.

• NORTH TRAILHEAD, proceed about 4 miles, passing through Minturn, to Tigiwon Road #707. Turn right onto Tigiwon Road and continue to the end - 8 miles of rough dirt road, park at the parking area at the end of the road.
• NORTH TRAILHEAD: starts at 10,320 ft. At the end of Tigiwon Road. (There are 2 trailheads here, use the Fall Creek to go to the lake, the other goes to Mount of the Holy Cross)
• ELEVATION GAIN: from trailhead to Lake Constantine: 1,100 ft gain in 3.5 miles
• USGS MAP(S): Mt. of the Holy Cross, Minturn.
• RECOMMENDED SEASON: Late June through September

COMMENTS:

• From the North Trailhead, the trail climbs gradually to Lake Constantine. After crossing Fall Creek, the trail climbs abruptly to the alpine meadows below Fall Creek pass. Over the pass, the trail drops down to the Tuhare Lakes.
• Halfway to Lake Constantine is the Notch Mountain trail turn off to gain the ridgeline and see an awesome alpine view of Mount of the Holy Cross.

Preparation

Gear:

Meal; Planning:

• Oatmeal
• Rice
• Dried vegetables for rice
• macaroni and cheese or ease quick box meal
• Any dried beef jerky you can make.
• Gorp.
• Etc. I will see what you want to bring.