June 30 - Broad's Fork Meadow

Earlier in the day, there were threatening-looking clouds across the valley, but this - and a breeze - moderated the heat a bit and it reached only into the mid-90's.

When I reached the parking lot I found - as had others - that it was full, with other people circling about as well. Driving down to where our growing group had gathered I momentarily parked in the middle of the aisle to catch word of the plan for the evening's hike. At about that time, Bryan came up and suggested that he could take four passengers and that I could zip into his place just has he pulled out: As it turned out, the parking spot that he'd occupied - at the extreme northwest end - was wider than the other spots so I pulled in, hugging the right edge, allowing Gordon to pull in right next to me, leaving just enough space for me to squeeze out of my driver's side door while both vehicles were still within the demarcation. Upon witnessing this feat, Gary said that he'd wished that he'd had a video of the event...

Extracting myself and my hiking gear from my car and wandering over to the main group I determined that the plan was to go to the meadow in Broad's Fork (a.k.a. Mill-B south.) This is a rather typical "early" season hike, as it is fairly low in altitude compared to some (not quite 9000 feet at the end) and it is also quite long, requiring as much daylight as is available. With this in mind, the entire group crammed themselves into three vehicles and headed up the canyon.

Before too long we reached the "S" curve, parked, got out, donned our gear, and started up the canyon. Since I was in the lead group, it wasn't until a few minutes later - via radio chatter - that I became aware that the car with Brett along with Gary and his mother Kay hadn't been seen since we left the parking lot. Stopping my ascent, I put my HT on high power and gave a few calls on 147.54: When that yielded no results, I called again on 146.52 and 146.62 - but no joy on those frequencies, either. Resuming the upward trek through the still-verdant trees, I soon heard a choppy signal from Brett. Moving toward the edge of the trail where there was less blockage of foliage and terrain, we managed to make contact: He reported that he'd gotten up-canyon as far as the Guardsman Pass road turnoff and not having seen our vehicles anywhere, started to suspect that something was amiss. Directing him to turn around and head back down-canyon, we gave him as good directions as we could with the intermittent signals. After a few more minutes during which we continued to climb we heard him again, this time with a very strong signal: At this point we refined our instructions and he successfully landed in the parking lot and they belatedly started on their way.

After the trail makes a fairly long traverse along the side of a ridge, it suddenly turns toward the left and starts to climb. Before too long, you become aware of an increasingly-loud roar off to your right and you soon come to a primitive log bridge that crosses a roaring stream - but you ignore that and follow the trail a few more 10's of feet higher until you get to a sturdy footbridge. Crossing that, the roar of the creek begins to subside and the trail climbs even more steeply as it works its way upwards toward the meadow, passing through the occasional stand of trees and tall plants. Along this trail we spotted a wide variety of flowering plants and berry bushes in various states of development - these interspersed with shimmering groves of quaking aspen: At times, one could stop to enjoy them, while at other time, the effort of the climb would occasionally distract from the scenery around us.

Finally, we reached a clearing marked by several slabs of sloping granite - a welcome indicator that the destination was near and before too long, the trail rounded the end of a ridge and Twin Peaks cirque hove into view. At this hour the sunlight was beginning to cast a warm glow when it occasionally managed to peek through the broken clouds to the west, highlighting the still-snowy peaks and surrounding ridges. Despite the surrounding snow, the air was surprisingly warm and comfortable - even with the heavy breeze and my sweat-soaked shirt. Plopping down my gear, I followed the lead of the others that had also arrived and drank water, ate some snacks, changed into a dry shirt and took some pictures.

In past years it wasn't too uncommon to see bighorn sheep hopping around amongst the patches of snow and waterfalls higher-up in the cirque - easily visible only when the moved. It has also been common to see deer browsing about closer to the meadow, but this time, we saw no such movement on the surrounding terrain - the only wildlife evident being the occasional snippets of birdsong that occasionally rang out.

As we loitered in the meadow, a few others of the group started to arrive, including Mike. We also heard via radio that Gary, Brett and his mother had also passed Gordon - who was taking it easy this time, nursing a knee - and were still on their way. After most of an hour of taking pictures and enjoying the scenery, we packed up our gear and started back across the meadow - only to intercept Gary, carrying his camera and hurrying to catch the last vestiges of alpenglow. Continuing on down the trail we soon intercepted Brett and Gary's mother and we encouraged them, telling them (truthfully!) that they were nearly there and that it was, in fact, worth the effort to catch at least some of the waning sunlight: Not too bad an effort for a group that started on the trail about a half-hour after the rest of us!

The trek back down the trail isn't as exhausting as the ascent - although it can be somewhat treacherous and hard on the knees - but it does give one a continuously-changing view toward the west as the sun goes down with the ever-changing interplay of light amongst the surrounding landscape. With Bruce for company, I continued the descent in the gloaming, soon reaching the roaring torrent, crossing the bridge and starting down the steep trail on the other side. It wasn't until we started on the long, (mostly) level traverse that Bruce decided to wield his headlamp: While I had mine at the ready, I determined that I could mooch enough of his photons to ensure safe walking was we moved ever-nearer to the trailhead.

Not too far above the parking lot we became aware of the occasional flicker of light from behind: Stopping to look briefly, we could see that it was Gary and that much of the flickering we saw was, in fact, his LED flashlight in its battery-saving, seizure-inducing, discotheque "blink" mode. We soon arrived at the parking lot - followed only a few minutes later by the rest of the group and with everyone finally together we decided to take the obligatory group picture. After doing so, we piled into our cars and headed back down the canyon and up re-grouping at the parking lot, enough of us decided that we were hungry, so most of us headed over to the Belgian Waffle house where we sated our appetites with their offerings, after which we wandered home.