Brian and I headed to the Holy Cross Wilderness on Friday morning to camp at Lonesome Lake for the 4th of July weekend. It was a learning experience. I learned that I need to get in better shape if I want to do our planned Wind River Range trip in September. Though not a tough trail for Brian, I had some back issues until I learned how to really fit my new REI Mars pack’s hipbelt. Until then, the trail was a trial. Of course, I only figured out how to fit the pack correctly while hiking back out from Lonesome Lake.

According to the map, the trail is only 6 miles with the trailhead starting at 10,000 feet and ending at 11,600 feet so it was a pretty moderate hike. It might as well have been Everest with my ill-fitting pack. I don’t want to keep harping on this, but once I got the 4-strap hipbelt figured out, everything was A-OK. Anyway, we started the hike scrambling our asses off because the map we have shows the trailhead starting halfway up an access road to Homestead Lake. It’s actually before the access road so we had to climb down one side of a ravine and up the other to get to the trail. My legs were screaming, do you think you’re a Yeti, dumbass?, so at the top of the ravine I had to sit. Luckily, another pair of hikers strolled past us while we’re sitting down only about a quarter mile past the trailhead. “They took the easy way,” was all I could think to console myself. The rest of the hike was pretty easy until the last 2 miles. I had a shooting pain through my lower back and legs which made Brian and Jake the Dog stop a couple of times during that stretch. I’m not proud.

Once we set up camp, we broke out the 1.75 liters of vodka I hiked in and celebrated being out in the mountains (yeah, at least my back pain was due to something rewarding, right?). It was a pretty relaxing weekend from that point so I know it was totally worth it. It was a bit windy at night, but Sunday morning brought calm conditions that yielded this view outside my tent when I got up in the morning. It’s a reflection in the little pond north of Lonesome Lake. Pretty amazing.

Check out all the trip photos here. I’ll be adding captions soon.

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