RMNP - Macgreagor Falls - abort
Today was forecast to be warm, but windy. Highs would be around 55, but the wind would blow about 25-30 mph. All in all a good day for a hike. I decided to head up to RMNP to see if I could find McGraw Falls. McGraw Falls are on Black Canyon Creek, near Lumpy Ridge. I hit the Black Canyon Trail about 9a at the Lumpy Ridge Trailhead with the trail and ice still solid from the night freeze. That would certainly change in the next couple of hours.
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A view of the mountains of RMNP |
I had come down the Black Canyon Trail early last year when I hiked the loop from the Lumpy Ridge Trailhead to Bridal Veil Falls, so I sort of knew what to expect on that part of the trail. Depending on what map you look at there may or may not be an 'official' trail to McGraw Falls. I wanted to be careful because the trail crosses a lot of private property and I didn't want to be somewhere I shouldn't be. Land owners can be grumpy sometimes.
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Black Canyon Trail |
It looks like from the map I used that there were several places I could exit the Black Canyon Trail and connect to the McGraw Falls Trail. The first junction turned out to be a ranch road that went into the valley and back up, so I skipped that and stayed on Black Canyon. The next trail junction was also part of the Pear Climbing area junction. Lumpy ridge has a number of rock climbing areas, Pear is one of those. There are many others, I think the most spectacular is Twin Owls.
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Twin Owls (1) |
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Clearly this trail has not been maintained in quite a while. In several places trees had fallen across the trail which required minor detours and once in a while the trail would disappear. At one point it was clear that part of the trail had been washed away by the flooding creek. I eventually came to an area where the creek had severely washed away the surrounding hillside. There was plenty of snow and some exposed areas. I decided that rather and try to cross all that with snow cover, I would abort this objective and come back when there was no snow. On my return, in order to stay in the Park, I bushwhacked back up to the Black Canyon Trail. The hike was not really long enough but I wasn't motivated to tackle another four miles so I called it an early day and headed home.
Lumpy Ridge is a unique formation in RMNP. Here are a few pictures.
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Lumpy Ridge (1) |
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Lumpy Ridge 92) |
Overall Track Statistics for RMNP - McGraw Falls abort, 974 data points
Length 6.171 miles : Garmin Length 6.554 miles
Start Elevation - 7852.36 feet
Maximum Elevation - 8131.99 feet
Minimum Elevation - 7754.69 feet
Date of Hike - Feb 10, 2016
Start Time - 08:52 AM
End Time - 11:54 AM
Total Duration - 3:01 hours:min
Total Ascent - 1524.34 feet
Total Descent - 1527.95 feet
Net Ascent - -3.61 feet
Maximum Grade - 21.72%
Average Speed - 2.03 mph : Garmin Average Speed 2.15 mph
Maximum Ascent over Mile - 365.32 feet
Maximum Speed over Mile - 2.80 mph
Maximum Gain over Mile (%) - 4.93%
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