Good hike, Meh hike

Today we drove up 50 to Wright's Lake road and then parked at Dark Lake to hike on the Barrett Lake Jeep Trail. The gate was closed. That's bad for the jeeps, but good for hiking. It's definitely a road that requires special outfitting on your rig. It's a lot more like a trail than a road. There are still trees down across the trail. For hiking it's quite nice. It's relatively level. It climbs a bit, then is flattish, then drops a bit, then climbs a bit, then drops. We stopped about a mile in at the crossing of the Jones Fork of Silver Creek. The trail is mostly dry and dusty with a few muddy spots. The creek is great. It was running nicely but the snow has melted and the water was warm enough to soak my feet. Commando fished for sticks and spent most of his time hunting rodents on the surrounding granite.

The trail has lots of fabulous views of Red Peak, Taylor Peak and the rest of the Crystal range.

Saturday we drove up 50 again to Wright's Lake road and then turned up the Wright's Lake tie. Just after crossing the cattle guard near the Wilson Ranch meadow we turned left onto a forest service road. From the maps, it looked like we could explore Lyons Creek from some unusual angles. It wasn't much of a hike. We parked and walked along the very bad road and could occasionally see the creek below, protected by steep canyon walls. There were some dusty, rocky, brushy places to scramble down but we didn't try any of them. The road eventually just disappears.

We turned back the other way. The road dead ends at Lyons Creek and the land to the left is marked private property. We scrambled around on the Eldorado side and eventually found shade a nice granite and a sandy pool. I read until deer flies forced us to leave. Commando chased rodents.

Visited Donna, Malene, and Gary for dinner. Donna and Malene were having a quilt fest and I borrowed their sewing machines to do some much needed repairs.

I can recommend the Barrett trail for hiking but Lyons Creek is a bit of a hot, dry scramble without much payoff.