The Buffalo Peaks Wilderness

The 100 mile wide panoramic view of the Sawatch Range from the Buffalo Peaks, Mount Ouray to the south and Mount of the Holy Cross to the north.
Early on a cool June Aspen morning I strapped my pack to the rafts on the trailer behind an aged and battered minibus. I boarded with a crowd of sleepy tourists. Two familiar faces took charge up front. I was tagging along on a raft trip bound for Browns Canyon on the Arkansas River with the raft company I used to work for. We rumbled out of Aspen and up the narrow, windy road to Independence Pass. This scenic drive has an extra zip when you barrel over the pass in a fully loaded twenty year old thoroughly broken in minibus with a trailer on the back. Would the duct tape, chewing gum and bailing wire hold as we made the hairpin turns and passed the long exposed stretches without guard rails?
I caught up with the guides. One of them asked me if I missed guiding. I do. I miss the camaraderie with the other guides, the beauty and peacefulness of the river environment, the excitement of the inevitable mishap. There are of course occasional head aches, dealing with another guides egos, mistakes, and hangovers (or your own), or difficult clients, or a mechanical failures, or logistical breakdowns, or acts of God. But the difficulties are always overcome and there is always a satisfying feeling at the end of the day. I left a true love behind.
We rolled into Buena Vista and I hopped out at the only stoplight in town. I started down the main drag and stepped into the local bakery. Deep set eyes set in faces scared by too much sun and too many cigarettes peered up at me from a haze of blue smoke across a haphazard set of brown Formica tables and vinyl covered steel frame chairs. I ordered an orange juice and a fried cinnamon roll and asked for the bathroom. They replied that they did not have one and directed me to the museum down the street. I ate on the wooden bench out the front door and then headed on to the museum.
I stepped into the museum and a mannequin in a wedding dress came tumbling down the stairs at me! The flustered curator followed behind it. She was working on the feature exhibit for the summer, “A Parade of Gowns”, a bunch of old wedding dresses worn by local women over the past 100+ years. I asked where the bathroom was.
On my way out I asked her for directions to Four Mile Road. She had to think about it was able to come up with some directions. I told her about my trip and she sent me off with the smile of a mom trying not to worry about her son and a “God Bless You!”
I started down the road out of town north along the railroad tracks and put my thumb out. Houses on a couple acres each lined the other side of the road. There was no landscaping, but most had colorful flower pots on their front porches. There yards were the wild high desert. And the desert was in full bloom--yucca, prickly pear, orange globe flower, and a host of small yellow, pink and white flowers. The sky was clear. Red-brown gumdrops of aged granite with hardy green tufts of pinyon and juniper trees dotted the valley floor. Snow drifts streaked the summits of the Sawatch Range to the west. A deep calm grew within me as I absorbed the scene. I quit putting my thumb out. I made it a few miles down the road and turned off the pavement at Four Mile Road. A forest service sign mapped out the area and designated varying levels of restriction on recreation throughout the area. An introduction explained that this map was the product of input from many land owners and public land users. One dissenting land owner taped on his own note, claiming he was never asked about how the land ought to be managed.
I was heading for the Buffalo Peaks, twin 13,300 foot peaks designated as wilderness on the northern end of the map. I climbed up the gravel road through the pinyon and juniper. Stunted but brilliant Indian paint brush and pentstemon poked out of the pink sandy soil. The wind blew hard. I had lunch in the lee of a large boulder in a dry valley. A few atv’s piloted by retirees wearing mesh ball caps and toting small coolers passed.
The road wound down to Fourmile Creek and followed it upstream. When the stream forked I left the road and followed the roadless tributary. I bushwhacked and scrambled through deadfall and crumbling granite boulders up the steep grade. Above I could see a cave set into the boulders with a commanding view of the valley below. I approached slowly and hollered a few times and kicked a few rocks around--I did not want to surprise a mountain lion deep in its afternoon nap. Nothing. I climbed in, sat on a cool slab, took in the view and had a snack.
I pushed on upward. The grade of the creek lessened and I wandered through grassy meadows and aspen groves. The twin summits of the Buffalo Peaks loomed above. The creek forked some more and its flow was absorbed by peat bogs created by now abandoned beaver ponds. Where had all of the beaver gone? There was still plenty of aspen for them to eat. But the stream flow was hardly a trickle. In the past twenty years had there been too many dry, hot summers and sparse winters to keep enough water running to fill ponds up behind their dams? Or had the peat become too deep and just soaked up all of the water?
I found a spot to camp next to two dried up ponds. Water trickled only through a small passage between the ponds, but it was enough to fill my water bottles and cook pot. I set up camp and headed off to a larger fork of the creek to rinse off.
A large bull elk with velvet antlers sprouting eight inches out of his head was grazing in the lush grasses of an overgrown beaver pond below camp. I stealthily stepped down boulders and around aspen trunks, stalking the bull. The wind was at my face, there was lots of movement of tree branches in the wind, and lots of noise from the rustling leaves and trickle of water. But the bull knew something was up. At 50 yards I stepped on a tiny twig on top of a boulder and it made a faint snap. Instantly the bull darted into the woods.
I went and had my bath in a shallow pool--more of a spit bath really--, rinsed out my salty clothes and sun bathed a bit. I returned to camp and ate and rested and tried to read. The mosquitoes were fierce. I stopped reading several times to swat down several mosquitoes, but every one I killed seemed to be instantly replaced by another. I was under siege!
I gave up and got up to photograph some shooting star flowers I’d passed on the edge of the meadow where the elk was grazing, beneath some aspen trees in moist grass. These are some of my favorite flowers. The black tip of the flower points down and is capped by a yellow crown and trailed by pink upswept petals.
I came back, made and ate dinner under a brilliant sunset and settled into sleep under a starry sky. It was the end of June, now officially summer, but the nights were still very cold--colder than I though they would be. I had my lightest sleeping bag and I shivered all night.
I woke up to frost on my bag and I made and ate tea and oatmeal before crawling out. The sun reached the grass on the other side of the beaver ponds first so I hauled my gear over there to dry out and warm up. I’d left my water pump in the grass by the trickle of water and the pump had frozen solid. I thawed that out too.
With everything dried and thawed and packed I went out to the trickle of water to pump water for the day. As I squatted in the grass a giant blonde bear bumbled out of the woods and stood where I had camped the night before, not 50 yards away! I felt totally vulnerable. My pack and knife were another 50 yards the other way. All I had to defend myself with was my water pump and a couple of empty bottles. It saw me take a step backwards and bolted full tilt into the woods it came from. I think thought I’d already left and was just checking out my camp to see if I’d left any scraps. He was as surprised to see me as I was to see him! This was the first bear I’d seen outside of the Aspen city limits in several years!
I finished pumping water and got going up the hill. After trudging for an hour or so in a dense forest I finally emerged into alpine meadows near tree line at the base of East Buffalo Peak. I wandered into a mystic bristlecone forest. A forest fire, probably sparked by lightning on the dry southern flanks of the Buffalo Peaks, had killed swaths of this ancient forest. So beautiful! Dead but still rooted in the tundra, wood hard as stone, embalmed in their own resin. There for eternity. Tortured and twisted by the harsh climate in life and now slowly whittled away by ice crystals driven by northern winds on frozen days and nights. Ghosts, mummies on the tundra.
On up the rust colored porphyry boulder field toward the summit. Another bleach blonde creature crossed my path—a fox. A little carrot top orange showed lower on his front haunches and mane and a little dark gray showed under his tail and rear haunches. Perhaps in this dry alpine environment the bleached look is favored in natural selection, these creatures blending in better with the bleached and wind weathered surroundings. The fox flowed like liquid over the rocks above me, stopping on tufts of grass to look back at me looking up at him.
I arrived at the east summit to find it a beautiful grassy flat top fringed by blue and yellow alpine forget-me-nots. I luxuriated in the view: to the southeast the Pikes Peak Massif rose with a fresh dusting of snow, the spine of the Sangre de Christos coursed to the south, the entire 100 miles of the Sawatch and its 15 fourteeners was visible from the southwest to the northwest, Mount Ouray to Mount of the Holy Cross, the Mosquito Range ran off to the north and to the northwest, Hoosier Pass, and beyond, the Front Range fourteeners of Mounts Evans and Bierstadt and Peaks Grays and Torries. My view was brought back to the summit meadow as a lone bighorn sheep trotted by.
I headed over to the slightly higher west summit along a broken knife ridge. The north summit wasn’t as hospitable--just broken boulders. I settled in amongst the rocks and had lunch.
I trotted down off the northwest slopes and came across a church group heading up for the afternoon. I talked to the kid out in front of the group. His name was Kyle and he was from Arizona. He’d been skiing near Durango a couple years back and had paddled Browns Canyon on the Arkansas the day before. He liked it a lot out here. I bet he’d have followed me if I asked him. I hope the group made it to the top! A few of them were looking pretty ragged though.
On down through thick forests where the last of the winter snowdrifts had melted into pools of water connected by small rivulets on top of a carpet of pine needles. And out into the Buffalo Meadows—a network of broad valleys at 11,000 feet with meandering creeks on their floors. Walking in valleys was like walking on a giant sponge. It was hard to keep my balance.
I made a camp in a clutch of trees near where a couple of creeks converged and there were several large beaver ponds. I found a water bottle and book left behind by the last camper. The book was Lous Lamour’s “With These Hands”, and was signed “6/19/03 Dear Ballard, I pray you will grow closer to God. Have a great, SAFE experience! I love you with all my heart! Love, Mom. P.S. Miss me for a minute!” I watched the beavers go to work on their dams under a fiery sunset.
It was another chilly night. I buried myself in the bottom of my sleeping bag and was awake the last few hours of darkness rubbing my legs and butt to stay warm. I waited until the sun had been up for an hour or two and warmed things up a bit before I emerged from my cocoon. I do regret not getting up at sunrise, however, to get a photo of the orange fireball rising to the east over glistening frosted white meadows. The sun rose directly over the mouth of the valley.
Packed up and bushwhacked through some willows to an old jeep road. I followed it up a small creek to the divide of the Mosquito Range. I trudged on up and along the ridgelines all day in a stiff wind. This was my first major outing of the summer and my pack was feeling heavy. I wasn’t in good shape yet! I stopped several times to rest and snack in the lee of krumholtz or rock outcrops and entertained myself looking at the one inch tall white, yellow, pink and blue flowers and with wildlife encounters—occasional bighorns and two large herds of elk.
I made it out to Weston Pass and looked for a camp. I had food to go three more days and plans to cross the rest of the Mosquito Range to Freemont Pass. This was 20 miles away with 17 miles of that a ridgeline above 13,000 feet. I was tired and my left knee hurt. I was pushing it pretty hard on my first trip of the summer—30 miles in three days. I couldn’t find a spot I liked or water I trusted--there was a lot of mineralization and mining in the area and funny algae growing in the water. I resolved to hike down to the highway and come back at a later date with fresh legs and finish the last 20 miles on an epic day hike with a light pack and my own water.
I hiked down the road a ways. The forests were slowly growing back after being leveled in the mining days. Some meadows had not grown trees back yet and were dotted with sun-bleached stumps.
An old jeep creeped up behind me and I asked for a ride. Grandpa obliged. He and his two and a half year old granddaughter sat up front and grandma and I sat in back. I told them where I’d been. Grandpa said he use to go jeeping up there every summer before they designated it as wilderness. He said he was probably the type of person I hated. The type that tours around in jeeps and atv’s. I disagreed. I think the more people that get out and enjoy the outdoors, however they do it, the better the land will be protected. People will stand up for the places they love. I believe it was a wise decision to designate the Buffalo Meadows as part of a wilderness area, however. They are fragile high altitude meadows and access is difficult.
Anyway, these folks were up for a joy ride and a little hike. They were from Colorado Springs and had bought a cabin down the road at the Mount Massive Lakes, a community of 130 cabins on small lakes filled with diversions from Big Union Creek. The lakes were originally made to raise fish to feed the miners in the area a century or more ago.
A beaver had dammed up the creek and flooded the road. Grandma and Grandpa made sure little Amiah was awake to see it—she’d been sleeping on the way up.
Grandpa said the high mountain desert is his favorite landscape. From their cabin they have a commanding view of Mount Massive and Mount Elbert, Colorado’s highest peaks, across a sagebrush plain. Austere and grand. I had to agree--beautiful.
Some of the lakes by their cabin were being dredged and grandma had some of the dirt hauled to their cabin for topsoil. In it she found an arrow head! She was excited. She told me of an old Indian chert mine on one of the ridges in the area.
I got out at the lakes and thanked them for the ride and walked out to the highway to hitch another ride. A couple in a truck pulled over. They were heading to Aspen for the weekend for a friends wedding. Perfect! I bundled up in my wind gear and hopped in the back. The guy offered me a hard cider out of his cooler. I accepted and drank it with some cheese out of my pack as the sun went down and we climbed Independence Pass. We stopped on top to watch the last rays disappear. The couple invited me in to the cab for the ride down into A-town. We swapped hiking and skiing stories and I shared a few of my photos from my hike on my digital camera. I hopped out on Main Street in Aspen and walked home.
Prickly pear cactus bloom.
Overgrown beaverponds below the Buffalo Peaks
Shooting stars.
A bristlecone snage below East Buffalo Peak.
The connecting ridge between East and West Buffalo Peaks.
A beaver pond in the Buffalo Meadows.