Awesome Outings In Crested Butte 11Aug19-14Aug19

Irwin Lake Campground - Kala & I headed to Crusty Butt with Scott & Peg for some hiking and chillin'. We scored a keen site @ Lk Irwin CG among the jungle of wildflowers at 10.5KFt. Awesome mountains and people all around... we set up camp and I caught a bunch of stocker rainbows on the lake before heading down to meet some folks for pizza at Secret Stash. We saw a strange ridge-hugging cloud leaving Salida on the way.

Gunsight Mtn Bike Trail - After local brews @ the Stash, sleeping was easy. We arose for breakfast and to meet Ted, a local retired doc, to hike Lupine & Gunsight Connector above Slate River. Local mountain biking is very good and this was one such trail. It was a nice 5 miler with 1KFt of vert through one of the biggest aspen groves I've ever encountered. Later I learned, and drove through, the largest aspen grove in the world - perhaps it is even the largest living organism in the world - unless there's some fungus in Michigan with that distinction.

That afternoon we went to Mt Crested Butte and then on up toward Schoenfeld Pass. We dined near columbines in colors I'd never seen - must be genetic manipulations  We reached the snow plug covering the road about 2 miles below the pass and several miles above Gothic along the headwaters of the East River beneath the Ruby Range. I saw guided fishermen on the headwaters but did not wet a line.

Anthracite Ck In The Raggeds Wild - On Tuesday I chose the hike and selected a jaunt into the Raggeds Wilderness. The trail followed Anthracite Ck, which I fished of course, for 4.7 miles to the confluence with Ruby Anthracite. I had hoped to fish both streams but at the confluence we were several hundred feet above the water so I called it and we turned around. This is a very remote section with heavily overgrown trail and lush ferns and other vegetation, but a rockfall had left a couple huge boulders right on the trail and we encountered some feds drilling holes for later dynamiting the rocks - who knows what will really happed. I caught a half dozen of browns and rainbows but all pretty small (I didn't take some pics as I was mid-stream and didn't want to loose another iPhone) on purple or green chubbies or my peacock prince dropper. I was flinging the 1 weight so expected this result. On the occasions I hooked into much larger - I had some remote releases. The trail was like a jungle and delivered ticks on all but me - perhaps because I wore the Chota waders. This was a gorgeous place in a deep canyon with cliffs overhanging us 2KFt up, on the other side of the stream! I ate the raspberries but others didn't - it felt as if there'd be a bear around each bend, but there was not. So cool.

Scarp Ridge - On Wed AM we hiked up to the Scarp near the campground - 10.5K up to 12.2K over 2.4 miles. This is one of the most spectacular 5 mile hikes on which I've ever been. The wildflowers, old mines, the Ruby Range and all the Elks surrounded us. As we summited above Oh-Be-Joyful basin and Peerler Basin 2,000 feet below we could see Mt Crested Butte (and got great cell service for the 1st time in days) and even Aspen's 14ers of Snowmass and Maroon in the distance! Spectacular God's country. While atop the Scarp the wind came up and I actually lost my hat 12 ft down a 2,000 ft cliff. - I tried a little but nah, not worth it. Many of the cirques remain choked with snow in the <13Kft high Elks and the resulting waterfalls are amazing. These will not clear before snow falls again and we may have glacial holdovers - I was reminded of the cold Gunnison Co can hold in winter as we passed a snowblower parked atop the roof of a Natl Forest building!