Hunters Creek

July 26th, 2008

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We started off a little after 6:00am from the Sandbeach TH. Our destination was a new one, Lyric Falls and the Hunters Creek drainage below Mt Meeker. About half way to Sandbeach Lake, the trail crosses Campers Creek. At roughly 3/4 of the way, it crosses Hunters Creek. Right at the end of the bridge, before crossing, a narrow trail starts heading upstream along the creek. It's generally easy to follow, although the fallen trees do their best, at times, to obscure the way. I'm not sure how far along the trail we went, maybe 1 to 1 1/2 miles at the most. Anyway, the trail stayed fairly close to the creek the entire time, except for a brief break of possibly 50-100 yards. I lost track of the trail in this part, following what looked like the trail continuing along the edge of the creek. However, it dead ended in a dense thicket. There were no places along the trail that required bushwhacking, so anything like that means you're off trail. I backtracked a bit, and circled out from the creek a short distance. Then I spotted the first of 3 cairns that led through the short section that was farther from the creek. The same thing happened to me on the way back, and I never did figure out where I messed up. But it only cost me a couple of minutes each way.

It was a very nice trail, soft, shady, and easy on the feet. There were a lot of fallen trees across the trail. Many you could step over, but quite a few required care in passing, lest you get snagged. My pack got caught on one as I ducked under it; nothing a furious tug couldn't overcome. I've been through enough krummholz, a single dead tree wasn't going to stop me. It's a fairly lush area, so wildflowers are abundant. There were numerous places in the creek that had cascades or small falls, so I'm not sure that I ever identified Lyric Falls or got a picture of it. But it didn't matter, as the overall hike was very nice. We reached a meadow with a great view of Meeker's west face. We could also glimpse part of Mt Orton and Chiefshead. We didn't go much farther because the trail got very muddy. Before returning to the TH, we hiked the rest of the way out to Sandbeach Lake to enjoy the views and have a snack. Sandy got out the binoculars so we could view Longs Peak climbers on the Narrows and the Homestretch. It looked like a very busy day up there. We finished up just after 12:00pm.

Hike Stats:

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