Day 3-4 - Horn Fork Basin Hiking

Be Knowledgeable and Prepared: Figured better to put this at the top - see Disclaimer.  Hiking in Colorado can be dangerous if you are not prepared and if you do not use common sense and judgement.  There is plenty of valuable information already available, so I am linking to a particularly good site that you should browse if you are wishing to undertake a hike in Colorado or other mountains.                                                                           Here is a    Hiking Site  with lots of good information for you!

If you're interested, here is why I chose to hike in Horn Fork Basin:

Since we were overnighting (to save Cole's legs/energy for a 14'er hike), we got to the TH around 11AM.  It took us 30 mins. to unload and gear up for the hike.  Just when we were ready to go, a brief thunderstorm rolled over and reminded us (with a few lightening bolts) that Mother Nature was very much in charge out here.  We jumped in our car to wait out the storm and experienced a 5 min downpour and a few minutes of hail (pea size).

We got on the trail around 12:00pm, and finally made it to our camp site around 3:30pm.  Cole just couldn't stop giggling in the tent...

One thing that is new to kids camping in the mountains overnight is just how early one can or should go to bed.  This is very strange to them, as they don't realize that it gets fairly dark after the sun goes down behind the mountain ridges, and if attempting a 14'er summit, one really should be getting up fairly early anyway the next morning.  Cole went to sleep around 4:30pm (tired from hike) and woke up at 8pm wondering if it was morning yet.  Should have seen his look when I told him we still needed to sleep (somehow) for another 9 hours until 5 or 6 AM.

At 7:30pm, it was unfortunate, but Uncle Greg was not feeling well.  We determined Altitude Sickness, probably from his rushing out from Denver to meet us and minimal food / water in that rushing and subsequent hike up to 10,500 ft at our campsite.  So, I convinced him to head down while there was still light.  (Note: he made it down fine, got to Buena Vista, had a burger at J's and immediately felt better).

Funny how the dark and being in a tent plays tricks on you.  I kept thinking something was getting into my pack (outside the tent), but it was really just the wind.  We woke up at 6AM and it was roughly 37 degrees.  We dressed and hit the trail at 6:45 for our hike up to Bear Lake, since we missed the Columbia trail turnoff, thus punting Columbia for a later trip.  (In the picture to the upper left, Mt. Columbia is the peak behind Cole).

At about the 4mile point up the trail towards Bear Lake, there is a good sized boulder for a stopping point.  Of course, it also makes a tempting climb for any kid, and Cole was up on top in no time.  We got some great shots of the ridge between Harvard and Columbia (upper left), and the valley behind us.

These last few show us reaching Bear Lake, doing so at 9am. Cole did great, roughly 2000 ft from campsite  in 2 hrs, to about 12,500 ft, about a mile short and below the summit of Mt. Harvard..  We made the lake, shot a few pics, got back to our tent by 11am and reached our car by 12:45 to head to Frisco.