Vasquez Lake (Colorado) Trip

I’ve viewed Vasquez Lake many times, usually on my way to or from McQuery Lake, which is just on the other side of the Vasquez ridge. This trip was to see if there were any fish in the lake. Spoiler: No fish in the lake. Traffic was light on Friday morning as I headed West on I-70, then though Empire, parking at the Jones Pass parking lot, across from the Henderson Molybdenum mine. The weather was perfect, just cool enough to keep from breaking into a sweat in shorts and a tee shirt. I hoisted my 25lb pack and headed up the trail. Water was plentiful on the Henderson Cut. I hiked up the trail, missing the junction. After traveling the wrong way on the CDT about 300 yards, I met a group of women who were hiking down from Berthoud pass. They confirmed my suspicion, and I reversed direction. The junction was easy to spot (but also easy to miss). The sign was missing. I now headed up the CDT heading west and eventually reaching the treeline. Wildflowers were in abundance…it must be pretty close to peak in the high country. I saw a deer, and elk, and several marmots. Clouds began to build as I approached Grand Central Pass, and eventually a light rain forced me to zip on my pant legs, put on a fleece shirt and put on my rain jacket. Heading down from the pass, I found the trail easily (see link below) and continued on to the sink hole. The water looked good. Though there were several good campsites, there were no fish in the sink hole, so I decided to continue on to Vasquez Lake, which my GPS indicated was exactly 1 mile away (as the crow flies). I lost the faint trail several times, but the terrain was mostly open so I continued on in the general direction of the lake. At the end of the valley, the cascade from the lake was apparent, but my GPS told me the lake was still ¼ mile away, so I climbed up the hill and eventually reached it. I immediately set up camp, and then grabbed my fishing rod and headed down to the lake. It didn’t take long to figure out there were no fish. There were lots of insects and no ripples. I headed around to the deepest part of the lake to confirm. Nope, no fish, so I headed back to camp to make dinner. I never sleep really well the first night out on a trip, and this one was no exception. Sometime in the night, I heard the aluminum wind screen for my stove banging around a bit, but I didn’t really think much of it, it could have just been the wind, but the next morning, my water filter was about 10’ away from where I had left it (right next to my tent). The carrying case had visible teeth marks in it. Opening the case, I was relieved that the housing wasn’t cracked, though the foam float was visibly chewed, and the hose was broken where it attached to the pre-filer. This was easy to fix, I just need to cut ½” off the end of the hose and I was back in business. Obviously a bear had visited in the night. If he had cracked the housing of the filter, I’d have been in trouble. After breakfast, I broke camp around 8:00 and retraced my route back to the car. Drove home, thankful I wasn’t stuck in the awful traffic heading west on I-70 around Evergreen, and arriving home a little before 1:00. Not a long trip, but it was great go get up above all of the smoky haze in Denver for a couple days.

Instead of posting a map, etc. here's a link I found quite useful www.longs2pikes.com/12652.html.  Here are the pictures I took  goo.gl/photos/5nbtx8gH4rcFmtar8