August 22, 2022 Hiking to Strawberry Lake

August 22, 2022  Strawberry Lake

MEOWT!  I love to sniff things here.  And there are critters.  I find their holes and dig there but I haven’t caught one yet.

Another cold night into the 40’s.  It is a bit cloudy, but no immediate threat of rain.  My morning walk was to the pay station.  The beauty of staying in a place where reservations don’t rule is that you can change your mind.  We needed another day so we could hike up to Strawberry Lake.

Strawberry Lake is about a 4 mile round trip hike, with a 900 foot elevation climb.  Spouse found this on his All Trails App.  The trailhead is not marked.  Had we not seen somebody coming out of the trail the other day when we were exploring, we would have totally missed it.  It is just a little notch into the hill.  There is a bit of a pullout for parking.  We get there around 9:30 and only one car is there… the beauty of it not being a weekend!  As usual, Spouse has to fiddlefart around with this gadget, and that gizmo.  I think he has PTSD from watching Gilligan’s Island… a 3 hour tour…  Hiking on wilderness trails does have its dangers, but he is the king of ‘just in case’.  We both had a back pack with our rain ponchos, water and snacks, so we – FINALLY are good to go.

The trail is a series of switchbacks up.  It is dirt mixed with rocks which make for good footing.  Although the trail is wet, it is not muddy, which is a miracle given the rains we have had.  We climb, and climb, and climb.  The trail levels a bit.  Tree roots gnarl their way across the trail making good stairs, but also offering the opportunity to trip on them.  We are surrounded by pines, wildflowers and downed trees afflicted with the bark beetle.  This whole region has been decimated by the beetle.  There are as many dead trees as there are live trees.  

Spouse is always intrigued by the varieties of mushrooms.

At one point, for about 30 feet is the mud.  We climb on tree trunks and pretty much avoid it.  A creek is running alongside us.  It is only a few feet wide, probably the Colorado River!  Eventually, the trail levels out.  We actually see a sign pointing us left.  There are two trails left, which one? 

We take the wrong one… it is only about 100 feet and leads us to a beautiful alpine meadow surrounded by pines.  Hmmm….  This is not a lake… let’s try the other ‘left’ trail.  We followed it for about a quarter mile and then we saw it. 

Strawberry Lake is a sterile lake with lots of lotus flowers or water lilies.  It is surrounded by pines on 3 sides, then the meadow one the other side.  This is prime moose country… but of course we don’t see one.  There is metal ramp and floating dock for people to use to observe so they don’t damage the ecosystem.  Spouse and I are alone… it is quiet… except for the incessant beeping of his hearing aids.  Beep beep beep… he can’t hear it so it doesn’t bother him.  I whined like hell and he finally fixed it so we could enjoy the sounds.  The dragonflies were cracking, birds were chirping… NO FRIGGIN MOOSE!  NO elk, no deer… what gives?  Then some loud humans came and ruined the silence.  Oh well, we can’t hog it to ourselves, right?  One batch of humans is hardly a crowd and they were friendly.

We started down the trail.  Down is more challenging.  Gravity helps you some, but it also helps you slide, skid, and stumble.  Those tree roots that helped you going up are not as kind going down.  Your toes jam into your hiking shoes.  I was marveling at how fortunate we were to have a sunny day finally, and I kid you not… it wasn’t five minutes later when the clouds came and it started to rain!  It was light at first, but we stopped and put on our ponchos.  We got a little wet, but not bad.  We continued down…  Spouse was soooo slow, he gave me the truck keys and I went ahead of him.  I unloaded my stuff and waited.  I sat with the door opened but it started to rain and I had to close it.  Where is he?  I finally saw him come to the street and he looked like he had been run over by a train.  Did he fall?  No, he was just tired and he was not going to drive.  I got behind the wheel and closed the door just as the skies opened up.  Rain and hail… POURING!

Since we were at this part of the lake, I figured we would drive over to the trailhead for Monarch Lake, about 2 miles or so away.  Rain…  When we got to that trailhead, it was
covered in white – hail.  It looked like snow!  We turned around and headed back to camp… where it was dry dry dry!

After a shower and a rest, we headed back to Grand Lake for an Asian dinner.  Spouse saw this place yesterday and it looked good.  It was good…

We also checked out the Stillwell Campground about 2 miles up the road.  We can dump our tanks there.  They have rv spots with electricity and water and killer views.  Probably need reservations tho to get those spots.  Oh well… we loved where we have been.

And we came home to a beautiful sunset at Lake Granby.