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| Panorama, west access to Scapegoat plateau |
I had plans to do a number of pack trips this summer, but none of them panned out. We had serious forest fires most of the summer, and much of the back country was closed. I did some more work thinning small trees to reduce the fire hazard around the place. I had piles of dry, cut up saplings lieing all over, and finally time to get away, and then a lightning storm started fires across the river behind the house. It didn't seem like a good idea to take off in dry conditions with a fire threatening to come down the mountain and lots of tinder sitting around waiting to be ignited. I decided to stay home and finish cleaning all that up.
Finally, in mid September, we got enough rain to quench the fires. Dona and I grabbed some food and our sleeping bags, packed the horses, and headed up the North Fork. My goal was to try to get up on Scapegoat Mountain from the west side. I'd been up from two places on the east side, and knew you were supposed to be able to get up on the west side. That makes a traverse possible...
Since we only had two horses with us, we packed one and rode one, and switched off hiking.
A mile or two above the pack bridge, we got into some places recently burned by the Conger fire. Most of this was stuff that had already burned in the 1988 Canyon Creek fire. The area was starting to take on the patchwork mosaic of a natural area, although it's going to have to go a few more generations to really get there.
I had hoped the fire would burn out all the small lodgepole on the flat below the North Fork patrol cabin, so that it would revert to a big meadow. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The cabin and its surrounding area was untouched, probably because the fire crews steered the fire up the hill behind it.
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| Dona on Pack Bridge | Poppie, Daiquiri at Cabin | Burn below Cabin |
We had a bite to eat at the cabin, tightened Daiquiri's pack, and headed up to the falls of the North Fork.
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| On the trail |
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| Dona on cliffs below falls | Dona on cliffs below falls | Looking towards falls |
As usual, we couldn't really see the falls. We climbed down to the top of the falls and had a nice view of the small falls dumping into the big pool immediately above the falls itself; and a great view peeking over the top of the falls. But no good view of the whole cascade. One of these years I will go up there late in the season and hike and wade up the river so I get a proper view.
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| Above the Falls | Right above the falls |
Above the falls, we soon got into the recent burn. It was pretty interesting seeing what burned and what didn't. Much of the timber that had burned in the 1988 fire had fallen on the ground, and most of it had burned. There were white streaks of ash amid black, burned over soil; all that was left of former logs lieing on the ground. Yet along much of the trail, there was a thin patch of green. I wondered if the fire crews monitoring things had used backpack sprayers to quench the fire as it neared the trail, and used the trail as a fireline. Yet even in places where things were burned on both sides of the trail, sometimes there was a patch a foot or two wide on both sides of the trail which wasn't burned.
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| Burned | a few weeks ago | (Sep 2007) |
Our original plan was to camp near Carmichael Cabin, but Dona was having some trouble with her feet and Daiquiri was getting tired, so when we got to a little meadow near the river which was unburned we made camp. I've wanted to camp there in previous years, before all of this got burned up, but it's a little late for that. However, it was a pleasant camp with live trees around and the river nearby.
But with the camp where it now was, getting up on Scapegoat was going to be more of an effort. My original plan was to hike from camp, but it was a bit far for that. Dona suggested we try to climb Mt. Evans, which was right across the trail from camp. I've always wanted to do that, but have shied away from it because of all the timber on it. It's more accessible from the north, in the Dabrota Creek drainage, but I've never camped there either. Anyway, with the recent burn, things were much more open. I had some reservations about how far we'd get, envisioning lots of half burned thickets, but it seemed like a good thing to do since we had the opportunity.
Dona's ankle was still giving her some trouble, so we stopped and she did some preventative maintenance... We had a nice view looking down on camp; we had the one unburned area for quite a bit of river bottom in both directions.
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| Looking up N. Fk | Preventive medicine | Looking down on camp |
It was interesting hiking through the burn. We would find places where a small patch of grass was untouched, totally surrounded by charred ground. Why was that little patch spared? What a blessing; a seed source for the rest of the area.
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| Grass amid the burn |
As we inched our way up, we had a great view of Red Mountain to the south. There was new snow on the higher peaks from the rain we had received lower down the week before.
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| Red Mountain | East Fork / North Fork Confluence area |
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| Xxx Mountain | Looking East | Looking Southeast |
We eventually emerged onto the scree slopes of the upper mountain, and poked our heads over the top. We had an outstanding view of the Scapegoat massif, a huge chunk of rock extending for several miles from north to south. It was late in the day, and we were on a false summit, about a mile from the true summit. It was "right there," but it would take some time to get there, and we would be coming down in the dark, and Dona's ankle wasn't getting any better. So we decided to enjoy a late snack and then head down.
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| Scapegoat from Mt Evans false summit | N Scapegoat Massif from Mt Evans false summit | Mt. Evans from false summit |
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| Panorama from Mt. Evans false summit |
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| Dona and Max on Mt. Evans false Summit | Looking South | Looking towards Carmichael Cabin | Bushwacking |
The next day we decided to attempt to get up on Scapegoat. Dona rode Poppie, and I rode Daiquiri bareback. We went up to Carmichael Cabin, then headed up Dabrota Creek. We tied the horses and had lunch near the creek below what looked like the only possible way to work up onto the upper plateau.
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| Glimpse of Scapegoat |
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| Mt. Evans | Lunch beneath Scapegoat |
After lunch, we scrambled up the scree and through the bushes towards the break in the west wall of the Scapegoat massif. As we worked our way up, the view kept getting better, and it soon became clear we would make it.
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| Dabrota Cr. / Cabin Cr. divide | Working up to the plateau | West access to Scapegoat plateau |
The slope we were on opened into a large basin on the upper plateau. I expected to see grizzlies or goats or sheep grazing, but we didn't see any. But it is a cool place; I'd love to go back in summer.
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| Upper basin of west access to Scapegoat plateau |
We crossed the basin and climbed a bit more to get on the plateau proper, where we had a great view down into a similar basin above the Green Fork on the other side -- one of the places where I'd come up last year. And the top of Scapegoat was just a mile or so to the south of us. Unfortunately, as on our hike up Mt. Evans, it was late again, so we saved the summit for another day and headed back down.
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| Looking NW | Looking N | Looking down on Green Fork | Tippy Top of Scapegoat |
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| Coming down |
That was it for our short pack trip; we headed out the next morning. The horses were glad to be heading home, and we made good time.
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| Poppie, Daiquiri, and Dona | Dona and Poppie |
We stopped at some pretty cascades above the confluence of the East Fork with the North Fork for lunch.
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| N Fk above E Fk Confluence | N Fk below E Fk Confluence |
In short order, we were back at the cabin and then down to the trailhead.
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| Looking down North Fork above the trailhead |
A great trip, although short. But something to whet my appetite and give me something to look forward to next year...
This page last updated on 2013-10-23.
