In the spring of 2001, John Rettig and I did a little snow shoe trip in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness. We originally had planned to hike around the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness area, but the road was not yet open. So we headed for the Collegiate Peaks and Cottonwood Pass where we knew the road was open to the trailhead.
We took the Denny Creek Trail toward Mt. Yale because we were familiar with it, and we knew we could find plenty of good camping spots near Hartenstein Lake. The Lake is buried under the snow here. You can make out the shoreline by the curve of the trees in the bottom of the picture.
We made camp after hiking for only for a couple of hours. Carrying winter packs with snow shoes makes for slow going. It also takes much longer to set up camp on the snow as you must stomp down and flatten out a suitable campsite. This is our humble accomodations in the pines.
A good kitchen area near camp makes snow camping much easier. Here John dug an excellent kitchen area for us underneath two trees. It included nice bench seats and a good wind block shelf for our stove. Even under the trees there was about 4 feet of snow accumulated.
We also brought John's dog Comet with us. She is a great trail dog and followed right behind us for most of the way as we took turns breaking trail.
Exploring above Hartenstein Lake.
We hiked around Hartenstein Lake and traversed the slope up to Browns Pass. We didn't cross many serious avalanche slopes, but the snow did make some pretty interesting sounds as it settled when we crossed.
The surrounding peaks were beautiful with a covering of fresh snow.
This is me at Browns Pass on the Continental Divide, elevation 12,000 ft. The trail from here continues on to Kroenke Lake.
John and Comet at Browns pass.
Comet had a great time hiking with us. Most of the time she followed along in our tracks so that she didn't posthole too much.
John and Comet relaxing after a hard day of hiking.
Mt. Princeton as seen from the Denny Creek Trail. Another mountain for another day!