Rustler's Gulch Hike

On July 12th, Richard and I headed to Crested Butte, Colorado to hike the known Rustler's Gulch Maroon Bells National Park trail.  I have always wanted to see the wildflowers that bloom in this area.

We woke up Saturday morning at 2:30am and arrived at the trail by 8:00am - it was a 4.5 hour drive. About 6 miles before we arrived near the trail, we had to go off road with the Minni Cooper. The road was a little rough but not too bad until we had to cross a small river bed - luckily there was enough clearance for the Minni to cross, but we heard rocks sliding underneath. When we came to an even bigger river crossing we decided to not cross it and parked the car.  Luckily the road the to trail was only a few feet away. We had to cross another knee high river bed to get to the dirt road that actual went to the trail head. The hike on the dirt road was the hardest part of the whole trail! 

We finally arrived at the trail head and began our hike.  The trail was a nice gradual up hill climb, and could see lots of yellow sunflowers along the hillside.  We had to hike in a few muddy spots with small waterfalls as well as shallow river crossings. The scenery was breathtaking and the wild flowers were outstanding! I took lots of pictures and stopped to take in the beautiful surroundings. 


We arrived at a half way point where we had to cross a large, fast flowing river to get to the other side of the trail.  We debated crossing, but then decided to hike up off the trail along the river to see if there was another way to across. We finally found a large fallen tree that went across the river which we carefully walked across.  Once we got to the other side we had to find our way back to the main trail and got a little lost. We crossed lots of bushes and Richard stepped in a huge mud pile that went up past his ankle. It even made that yucky swamp sound when took it out.  It was pretty funny!  We were glad when we found the main trail again and came out into a huge meadow full of wild flowers and mountain peaks everywhere. We hiked another 2 miles and came across some snow and the trail disappeared.  We sat and eat while we looked at the huge Maroon Bells peaks and water fall.  

We descended back down the mountain before the storm clouds came.  We had help from a couple that marked the side trail to find the fall tree again, so we avoided getting lost and it was a lot easier to find this time. The temperature started to get warmer and the bugs were buzzing. Half way down we started to feel sore in our legs and feet. I was starting to feel tired and slipped on some mud and fell down hard making the mud go everywhere. Luckily there were plenty of streams to get cleaned up in. By the time we got
back to our car our feet were covered in mud, wet and sore.  

The trail was awesome and I would do it again in a heart beat!  I loved every minute of it!


Until next time...