Bill's Views on Most Everything

I did a ramble to Deadman’s Hill and some other places. I did survive, but it was not easy.

Deadman’s Hill is west of Redfeather Lakes on a road that ends on the Laramie River road.  This is one of the more remote mountain areas east of the Continental Divide in Colorado.  Redfeather is a resort community northwest of Fort Collins and north of Rustic, in Poudre Canyon.  There are lakes, a store and post office, a restaurant, and many cabins.  There is a year-round population of about 250 people.  It is a bit funky, and nothing like the ski resorts with their upscale condos.

I went to Colorado State in Ft. Collins, lived there for several years, and never got to the area.  I have had Deadman’s Hill on my list, and tried to go over the road last spring.  Alas, the road is closed from December to June.  I was too early, but not too early to see a bear feeding in a meadow just before the closed gate.

I went back last week, the road was open and well graded.  It climbs through a Lodgepole Pine forest to a spur leading up to a fire lookout tower that has a view of most everything from Rocky Mountain National Park to Wyoming and from the plains to the Rawah Wilderness in the Medicine Bow mountains.

From the lookout tower I went down the hill a ways to a long meadow looking right at the Rawahs.  A little creek ran through the meadow and a pair of bull moose would drift out of the timber, feed for a while, and move back into the trees.

I got the tent up just in time for the first rainstorm, and had another storm a couple of hours later.  A pleasant and lovely late afternoon, with the solitude I always seek in the back country.

If it is not raining steadily, I set up my cot outside, with the sleeping bag inside a canvas bedroll along with a wool blanket.  I slept for a short while, got up to pee, got cold and stayed that way for the rest of the night.  I reached outside the bedroll and felt a layer of ice.  It seemed like my feet were as cold as those snowfields on the flanks of the Rawahs, and the rest of me had just come out of the water draining the snowfields.

I tried a few things that helped my body a little, but my feet got colder every time I left the sleeping bag.  Oh, and the sleeping bag zipper jammed.  No sleep, much misery.  At about 4:30 AM I climbed into my pickup and ran the heater to warm up.  Everything in the cab of that truck is lumpy or pokes you if you are trying to sleep.

At 5:30 I threw everything into the bed of the truck and went down the hill to the Laramie River road.  From there I went north to Woods Landing Wyoming, hoping to find coffee and food.  Closed.  On to Mountain Home, Wyoming, nothing there.  I went west to the road from North Park Colorado into Wyoming and south to Walden.

I found coffee, heat, food, and a semblance of civilization.  There were four old guys, retired ranchers from the look of them, sunning themselves on the patio in the 45 degree morning.  I saw some bicycles parked nearby and asked them if the bikes were theirs.  One shook his head, taking me literally at first.  None of them had been on a bicycle in at least 60 years.  You don’t ride bicycles if your headgear is a cowboy hat and your shirts have snaps, not buttons.

The bicycles belonged to some city folk having breakfast and fixing a flat tire.  They were in their 60’s.  Hardy people there, in Jackson County.

From Walden I went back north along the North Platte River into Wyoming.  The Platte and Laramie River valleys are what I think of as mountain ranch country.  Irrigated hayfields and pastures flanked by sagebrush hills rising into the timber.  Everyone waves at you.

I then went east over the Medicine Bow Mountains, capped by the Snowy Range.  This is one of my favorite drives.  The mountains are snowy white, jagged, and have lovely lakes at their base.  The white rock is 4 billion year old quartzite, older than anything in Colorado.  Just off the highway on the way to a campground are some stromatolites, or petrified algae, some of the oldest evidence of life on earth.

I had lunch in Laramie and decided to return to Redfeather and get a cabin for some sleep.  There were no cabins available, so I went to Poudre Canyon, where a cabin was too expensive.  By that time I was so tired I just went home.  A tired, cold trip in some fine country.