[boof512]

Has anyone hiked into the big south from trail ridge road? I have herd that it has been done, but would like beta on it. How long is the hike and how much does it suck with your boat in tow?
I live up in estes park and could probably get someone to run our cars over to the poudre for us to reduce the shuttle for that day..
Also any Idea when the season would start if we did hike in and run the river?
Let me know what you think
thanks
Patrick

 

[frenchy]

hey patrick, a group of us are planning on doing this as soon as the big south is at a good medium flow. we'll be checking the gauge and will keep you posted. help with the shuttle would be awesome. i know it's been done a few times before and doesn't look too bad. we're panning on making it a 2 day affair. lets stay in touch, probably won't happen until at least 1 and 1/2 months from now..

 

[boof512]

big south hike

I would be psyched to make it a two day deal! Just let me know when and I will be there! Give me a call at 970-218-4228 when things start to go off!
thanks
Patrick

 

[frenchy]

you got it

 

[Dave Frank]

Are you going to do it twice, or are you talking about spending the night in there? BRRRRR.

 

[Courtney]

Yo Frenchy!

I'll be back in Colorado in mid June, will you save some of that Big South water for me?! I'm bringing my creek boat!

Hope all is well in the Fort, psyched to get back on the Poudre this year.

Cheers,

Courtney Lynch

 

[Marco]

The topo says-

Consulting my topo, it looks like about 8 miles & 1,800 ft drop from Medicine Bow Curve on Trail Ridge to the confluence of Weird Cr. & CLP. The first 2 miles would be off trail following the ridge down from Medicine Bow Curve to the CLP trail. About a mile on tundra, then forest, and finally willow whacking and crossing the CLP to get to the CLP trail. From there about 6 miles of low gradient trail hiking to get to the confluence, unless an alternate upper put in presents itself. No doubt some post holing through snow drifts would be involved.

Frenchy- Got myself a Huck this spring after doing my best submarine imitation in my Ace 4.7 with you & friends on Spencer last year. Took it for a test drive on Barrel and it worked like a charm. If I get some more time under my belt with the Huck I might be interested in joining this little expedition...

Cheers!
Mark

 

[RiverWrangler]

yo! you guys can hike. i'm talking about paddling as much of this section as possible (albeit that might not be very much...but we can hope!). at over 200ft. per mile there has got to be some drops in there and knowing the character of the rivers in rmnp, a lot of wood as well). i've been dreaming of this for a while now because the big south season over the past two years has been a combined two weeks. i'm in.
evan
p.s. i've got a little beta from a little birdie

 

[boof512]

thanks for the beta

Marco,
Thanks for the beta.. I just got my topo map out to reserch it, but you already did it for me..
Anyone have a realistic time line on when this thing will go?

Also a friend of mine owns the never summer yurts up there and has two snowmobiles that she said she would shuttle us up there for some beer. Just don't know if there will be an access with snow on it when it is running..

let me know what yall think
thanks
patrick

 

[Marco]

Not enough snow

I doubt there will be enough snow for snow mobiles, just enough to be annoying on the hike in.

To clarify on the gradient- most of the altitude loss that I mentioned in my prior post is hiking down to the river. The hike down the ridge would reach the river at 10,200ft, and the confluence is at just under 9,800 feet, leaving 400 ft drop in 6 miles. Looks like there is one canyon section, but the rest looks like windy medow stream.

I heard a great quote the other night attributed to one of the members of the Tsang Po expedition; after looking at satalite images of the Tsang Po, he commented- "You know you're in trouble when you are scouting from space!"

I might paraphrase that to say "You know you're in trouble when you're scouting on a topo!"

I take no responsibility whatsoever for mindless blathering and speculation based upon brown squiggly lines!

Mark

 

[RiverWrangler]

Patrick,
the never summer yurts could prove useful. where exactly are they. are they in the park? near teh river? i thought they were all farther north (in the never summer range). if the poudre comes up early enough we may be able to get in there as early as anyone ever has with the use of the snowmobiles (they don't need that much snow).
as far as the timing goes i think it should be good to go in early june (maybe even before if you're not afraid of the snow). i think it all depends on the weather over the next month, but as a general rule there seems to be enough flow in the big south by early june every year.
as for the hike, i will be prepared to walk most of the way to the confluence with weird creek...although even looking uptstream from the confluence you can see a runnable looking drop in the park and i've hiked along the clp trail up into the park and much of it appeared runnable (flow dependent). i've also heard of people putting in just below poudre lake instead of hiking down from the medicine bow curve. the elevation drop from the lake to the confluence is about 1100 ft. this still puts the average gradient at more than 100ft. per mile, with some sections being much steeper. anyway i don't mind if i have to hike the whole clp trail. it's all down hill & the cool part about this mission is that you get to explore the entire big south fork, from its high alpine source to the confluence with joe wright, where it forms the poudre proper. i love this river and for anyone willing to hike/run this section i'm going to guarantee a spiritual experience.
Evan

 

[Dave Frank]

Hasn't someone paddled/portaged this whole stretch before? Ethan Greene maybe? Pretty sure first hand beta is available.