On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I’ve been 4-wheel camping and backpacking with a friend since the early 80s. When doing the former, we typically find places that are tough to drive into, then do some moronically tough day hike as part of the trip. Despite both of us being in our 60s, we do these hikes as if we were back in college together in the early 80s.
Pomeroy Lakes is a typical trip. You go south from Denver on US-285 until you get to Nathrop, then head west. When heading into the mountains, that takes you thru one of our more noted “ghost” towns, St Elmo. The old narrow-gauge RR grade heads up to an actual ghost town, Hancock, itself a popular place for camping and out-of-state hunters in season.
Before you get there, you take a side route that leads to the Lakes. This route goes past the Mary Murphy Mine, another wonderful shambling wreck of a place typical of the Colorado mountains. The entire area is chock full of fantastic camping sites, 4-wheeling, backpacking and views like these.
We would only go so far to the lakes since our 4-wheel vehicle doesn’t have all the clearance to make it to where the first lake is located. Instead, we found a spot, pitched camp, then hiked the rest of the way the next day to include going up to a razor back ridge. Probably for the first time in our lives, the two of us said “Maybe we’re getting too old for hikes like this one.”
View of where we’re going from lower Pomeroy Lake.
Google Earth view of where we’re going. Note the little “trail” below the ridge in the center/right of the photo.
Close up of the “trail”. The uppermost red arrow is where we hiked two. The lower two are where the “trail” had been wiped away.
The trail is far more evident from satellite than when you’re actually on it. We practically bushwacked most of it, it was that faint on the ground.
View from one of the obliterated trail sections looking back.
View from where we hiked to looking along the ridge.
Baud
Looks like you had a gorgeous day.
swiftfox
Age of backpackers is an interesting comment. I went on a day hike from PenMar Park to High Rock on the AT in October. There were 3 pairs of backpackers who must have been 55+. There may have been one or two solo backpackers less than 40. Maybe it was the time of year.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The year before, we backpacked on the other side of the ridge above Hancock. On our day hike, we ran into two guys, late-20s, who were doing the entire Colorado Continental Divide trail. They were brutes as that’s not easy. We’re well past our sell-by date for something like that.
Miss Bianca
Wow, so comparatively close to me and not only have I never been to Pomeroy Lakes, I don’t think I’d ever even heard of them before!
JAFD
Glad to see you made it back home OK. Spectacular geology there, great pictures, sorry I didn’t hike that area when I was still hale and hearty.
The Great Megalopolis is under drought warning, brushfires in NYC parks, no open fires. Hoping for rain, predicted for Wednesday night
Tenar Arha
Wow. Love that shot down back towards the lake with the land, water & sky all in view .
Betty
Gorgeous scenery. Congratulations for still being able to take on such challenges.
Ramalama
When you say ” 4-wheel camping” what does that mean? Driving by car or SUV and then parking ..to then start hiking and camping?
I think I am once again losing a morsel of my English. Unfortunately French is not taking hold.
Trollhattan
Dang, those are a bit, how they say, exposed. Stark alpine beauty though, love it.
What’s the elevation? A sea level dweller myself, have to work my way into hiking anything above, say, 6k ft. Is the area subject to the daily 3:00 p.m. thunderstorms the Rockies are so happy to present?
way2blue
Um. Is that a volcanic crater you hiked into? And if so, do you know when it last piped up?
N.B., a few years back, I backpacked with longtime friends into Kings Canyon Nat’l Park. We were in our 60s. But. We arranged for packhorses to bring in a lot of gear. Did see a Boy Scout troop & leader (all outfitted in garbage bags owing to the rain) on the trail… Oh. And a couple guys in their 40s passing through to whom we gave a couple beers. They said they thought they were in a TV commercial…
StringOnAStick
Gorgeous rock glaciers shown on both aerial photos; Colorado has a lot of them. Have you done the hike to Mt Rosalee from the east side or the hike to Eccles Pass? Both are excellent though not 4WD adventures. Another excellent one but a steep haul is in the Lost Creek wilderness, but I can’t remember the name of the trail; it gets up into some really interesting granite landforms that I didn’t see anywhere else in CO, plus a great view of Mt Evans to the west.