In Red River. We enjoyed the Columbine Creek Trail immensely. So I started looking online for another trail that we could do and I found on All-Trails, the Middle Fork Lake Trail. Further from town but about the same distance and elevation except the gravel road to trailhead from the highway is a little over 1 mile long and it says don’t try unless you have a 4WD vehicle. We have a 4WD but I didn’t come out here to get stuck.

So we set out a little later than we planned and got to the gravel road to the trailhead and we came to a water bar in the road. I didn’t want to risk it so we went back to the highway and hiked to the trailhead. That added about 2×1.2 miles or 2.4 total to our excursion. As we hiked it, I saw that I could have gone over it easily with our car. I didn’t feel like hiking 0.4 miles back to the highway so we just kept on walking.

Got to the trailhead and off we went.

It was pretty open for a while. It looked like a fire had gone through years ago or maybe some logging, I don’t know. My Forest Ranger dad would know in a glance what the deal was and he could often tell layers of fires, or disease, and guess at the sequence of all that happened. Me, I can hardly tell one evergreen try from another.

The higher we went, the prettier it got. It looked like a wet year in this stretch of the mountains. Everything was green.

Nice stuff to look at everywhere we went.

Logan was doing pretty good on the hike.

We came to a water crossing just down from a waterfall. We just walked across it. The logs were too slippery and loose for us to trust and water felt good on our feet.

Heather was leading the way and I was bringing up the rear.

Lots of wildflowers

It was almost like somebody had planted them.

All sorts of colors.

As the trail got steeper, we entered a lot of switchbacks. We were at 10,000+ feet and so we each had our own strategy. My wife just charged on ahead. I was doing a rhythm where I was walking until my ears started pounding and then I would stop it stopped. According to my Garmin that put me in a heart rate range of 120 to 128 bpm. Logan just trudged on. It didn’t seem like we would ever get there. I knew from my long distance running days though that if you just keep going, you’ll get there.

And we did. Middle Fork Lake is the prettiest little mountain lake you’ll ever see. Crystal clear and I’m sure ice cold. We rested for a while.

And then started down. (Notice how fast things clouded up.)

We got a mile down the trail and then the rain and lightning started. It got worse and worse, especially the lightning. I personally know two people who have died of lightning. One of them in the mountains of New Mexico so I was a lot more worried about that than the cold rain. We were in the timber though so we kept going. I would have been leery of venturing in the open areas with lightning nearby. And then the hail started. Just a little bit at first but then it started coming down hard. It was maybe pea sized. It got to where it hurt. We stopped for a while and hunkered underneath a scrawny evergreen tree. I didn’t want to get out in the open while it was still hailing because I didn’t know how big the hail stones would get.

So we stayed there hunkered down as the hail peppered us and the wind picked up and got very cold and we were soaking wet. Sorry I wasn’t in the mood for taking photos and the only cameras we had were our cell phones. I thin lightweight long sleeve cover so I put that on even though it was soaking wet also. It seemed that we were hunkered down forever and after a while the hail gradually lessened and eventually stopped so off we went down the mountain.

It was still raining hard and the water was running down the trail about ankle deep. They were nicely constructed trails with water drains but on a switchback the middle drain just dumps the water back on the trail below. But as we continued to go down, the air got warmer and that was nice. When we got to the water crossing below the waterfall that I talked about above, the water was now halfway up to our knees. Nothing to do but go through it. Glad we had hiking sticks.

And then one of the happiest moments of my life; Heather asked me how far we had to go so I took a peek at my watch and I saw it was only 2.3 miles. Dang, I though it was going to be four miles. So yeah, we can do this! And the trail got flatter and wider and the water was less and less. So we made it to the trailhead and walked quickly the remaining 1.2 miles to the car. My main worry was that our car keys being electric wouldn’t work. Heather charged on ahead and by the time we got there she had the car started and warming up.

So we loaded up and took off with the seat heaters on high and the car’s blasting. So I was driving back to our condo and between the cold and the death grip I had on my hiking stick while hunkered down my arms were shaking and I was still freezing. So getting back to the condo and turning on the fireplace and taking showers putting on dry clothes was a wonderful thing.

So we were rookies. I knew better than to go up in the mountains unprepared for bad weather!! I grew up in the mountain west and heard lots about people who did like we did and had to be rescued and in real bad cases bodies were recovered. We took enough water and snacks. We needed rain jackets and waterproof containers for our phones and keys. I’ll be doing some more research before we try this type adventure again.

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