Backpacking along Pine Creek Trail, Collegiate Peaks Wilderness, Buena Vista, Colorado
It was going to be Fourth of July weekend, and we were looking to go on a backpacking trip that wouldn’t be crowded. Would this be possible in Colorado on the busiest long weekend of the summer? After some extensive research, I decided we would walk up the Pine Creek drainage. Ironically, this drainage has popular 14er Mount Harvard to the south and popular 14ers Mount Belford, Oxford, and Missouri to the north. Why would I pick a drainage between 14ers when I’m looking to avoid people? This drainage wasn’t really the normal route you would take up to any of these mountains, and I couldn’t find many trip reports on the trail which led me to believe this would actually be a quiet trail in the Collegiate Range. Did this turn out to be the case? Yes, indeed it did!
Up until just a few days before the trip I had thought it was just going to be me and my husband, Mike, on this trip, but got a call from one of my friends, Annie, a few days before the weekend who was looking for some adventure. What we were doing seemed right up her alley so Annie and her dog decided to join us.
We got an early start on the Saturday morning of Fourth of July weekend and parked at the Pine Creek trailhead. It only had 3 other cars in it. We took this as a very good sign. We set out that day thinking we’d hike around 8 miles. We started along the trail, which followed Pine Creek in a pretty forest setting. There we signs that pack animals were also used on this trail so we had to be careful where we stepped.
After about 4 miles of steady elevation gain, we hit the Colorado Trail. We turned right on this trail for about 1/10 of a mile before we turned back onto Pine Creek trail. We figured we’d start looking for a good campsite in 2 miles or so. Of course, when we started looking for a campsite there were willows for as far as we could see and knew that we weren’t going to set up camp in a bunch of willows. The mosquitos would come out if you stopped for more than a few minutes, and we knew they would be even worse in a swampy, willow area.
Me, Annie, and Mike at the intersection with the Colorado Trail
Looking down the drainage we were going to walk into from the Colorado Trail
Where we started looking for a campsite and only found endless willows instead
So we continued on longer than we would have preferred and ended up hiking 10.4 miles that first day before we found a campsite we liked. This campsite had great views of mountains in all directions. There still were a fair amount of willows, but it had become apparent at this point that we wouldn’t gain enough elevation to get away from the creek and the willows that liked to grow around it.
We set up camp and settled in for the night, playing some competitive games of Yahtzee. We decided our plan the next morning would be to hike up to Silver King Lake where we’d give fly fishing a try. We believed the lake was only 2-3 miles away, which turned out to be correct the way the crow flies, however what the maps couldn’t tell us is how swampy much of this terrain was. It required quite a bit of jumping from dry spot to dry spot, often requiring you to do some backtracking because there would be no dry way to continue at some points.
Heading up to Silver King Lake
Who skied it better? Mike or Krista ?!
Eventually we made it to the lake, and I assembled my fishing pole. Mike decided he would see how much luck I was having before he went through the work of putting his together.
Silver King Lake
Silver King Lake
It took me quite some time to figure out where the fish were hiding, and I had started to give up hope that there were actually even fish in the lake, when I came upon a deeper spot and could see tens of fish. I almost wish I hadn’t found this spot because I could not for the life of me figure out what fly they were attracted to. I probably changed my fly 10 times and each time, they would come investigate the new fly, sometimes even bump it with their nose, and then turn around and swim away, never taking a nibble. After an hour of this frustration, I finally gave up.
The clouds were starting to increase and there was a chance of rain that afternoon so we decided to head back towards camp. I kept my pole together to try my luck in the creek on the way down. Lo and behold, my first cast into the stream, I caught a fish! Of course that’s how it would happen - I’d spend hours at a lake trying countless flies to attract fish I could see, but I end up having my best luck when I decide to just throw my fly into the small stream in a spot that couldn’t have been more than 8 inches deep, without much thought or any expectations. The fish I caught could borderline be called a minnow, but nonetheless it was satisfying to have a little success, no matter how small!
It didn’t end up raining that afternoon despite plenty of dark clouds. We had an early dinner and headed to bed with the plan the next morning to pack up camp and head back to the car. The next morning we woke up and that’s exactly what we did.
We only saw ~10 people the whole weekend, but knew there were probably hundreds on the peaks of the 14ers around us. Total mileage over the 3 days ended up being 24.6 miles with 3870 ft of vertical. I highly enjoyed this trip - the views were breathtaking and it was off the beaten path. If you are looking for a long weekend backpacking trip, I believe this trip should be a candidate!
Pink Paintbrush in full bloom!
