Snowshoeing in Southwest Colorado

Colorado, snowshoeing | UltraRob | Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 8:33 am

My wife and I were dreaming of somewhere warmer for New Years like Big Bend National Park. Without much time off work, that would have meant as much time driving to get there as playing. So instead we went to South Fork, CO near Wolf Creek Pass to do some playing in the snow.

We took the kids to the top of Wolf Creek Pass to do some snowshoeing on the Lobo Overlook Trail which is 1.5 miles. Not surprisingly our 5 year old didn’t make it very far so my wife went back to the car with her.

I was having trouble keeping up with our athletic 6 year old. She starting wearing a blister on her foot so we turned around. I think if we would have gotten a little farther we would have gotten some great views of the mountains.

Later in the day, I went snowshoeing on the road along West Willow Creek at the edge of Creede. When I was a kid, we used to do rock collecting in the old mine tailings. I’m sure we were trespassing but we found some great agates and crystals.

It starts out in a deep canyon that I always enjoy. There wasn’t a lot of snow which was good in some ways since I didn’t worry about avalanche danger. I didn’t have a lot of time so I didn’t get up as far as I would have liked but had fun.

On the way down my dog ran up by a mine and went across the bridge you can see in the photo. He must have slipped while looking to see if he get get down to me and fell off the raised area on the left (here’s a photo with arrow). He had to have fallen at least 15 feet. I looked just in time to see him land.

My first thought was that I didn’t how I was going to be able to carry him out. I was surprised when he stood up and came over to me. Blood was coming out of his mouth. A quick check showed he had cut his lip. He also had a cut under his chin.

He ran around like normal the half mile we had left. A couple hours later he started limping but otherwise seemed fine.

We took him in to the vet on Monday to have his paw and leg checked since he was still limping. He had some swelling but the vet was pretty sure it was just sprained. He gave him some anti-inflamatories and he’s been walking normal since. He’s still banned from hiking until next. We’re just thankful he’s OK.

You can see a few more pictures from our snowshoeing in my Snowshoeing South Fork, CO Area photo album.

– UltraRob

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