Planning for Bushwhacking
September 2, 2023 - I look out my window and see a mountain. It isn’t a particularly steep or tall mountain and it doesn’t have that many trees on it. It also has no trail going up it. This seems like good place for a first bushwhacking adventure. If you aren’t familiar with the term ‘bushwhacking’ it does not mean hitting bushes with a machete or stick. The Oxford dictionary defines it as, “the activity of living or traveling in wild or uncultivated country.” For hikers, bushwhacking is traveling off-trail. That means route finding and more vegetation to deal with than if you were on a trail, but no machete. Hacking into the landscape would be destructive and require an unnecessary expenditure of energy.
The Mountain
The mountain is called Blacktail, but what is a “blacktail”. I had to look it up. It is a subspecies of mule deer that have a black tail and have antlers that branch in a different way than other deer. I wonder if the mountain got its name because of its black cliffs?
Whitetails on Blacktail
Since the mountain is so close, we drove over to do some scouting. If you look closely you might be able to see a road at the bottom of the photo. The road is within a State Park meaning a permit is required to park but we bought that permit with our car registration.
Sign in the Parking Area
Signs around the base of the mountain indicate that the area is closed from December 1 to June 30 for elk winter habitat. No problem. We will go before December 1. However, the area we will need to cross is a State Wildlife Area (SWA). You need a permit for that too but we have that one as well. The problem with hiking in a SWA is the other people using the area are hunters that aren’t thrilled with you spooking the elk they have been waiting on for hours. So, it’s best to hike out of hunting season. I went online to find out what other hunting is allowed in the area and when. You can hunt for elk, deer, rabbits, and dusky grouse. Hunting season for deer is the same as elk. Those seasons are a week or two each month from Sept 2 to the end of the year then closed for the elk over winter. Rabbit season is October 1 to Feb 28, but really it closes December 1 for the elk. And grouse? I have never seen that species of grouse here but that season is September 1 to November 26. After careful consideration we decided that the best option for hiking is during the breaks in elk and deer season. Rabbit and grouse hunters seemed to be a safer option.
Next we considered peak fall color. In this part of Colorado, the aspens will hit peak yellow the end of September or early October. Looking back at the hunting season calendar, the best time to go is probably October 1 to 14.
Now for the hard part. What route shall we take? There are only two parking areas along the road I mentioned before. Both areas are posted as day use only. So we have to get to the top and back in one day. Again, it’s not a very tall mountain, and shouldn’t take more than a day. I will call the parking areas and the routes from them West and East. I’ll get to route D, below, later.
D - Diamond Cabin Route; W - West Route; E - East Route
Consulting a topographic map, the West route follows a drainage north from the State Park, across conservation land before entering the SWA. The route would then turn east for the last 280 foot climb on property owned by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The distance in about 1.7 miles climbing in elevation about 1,440 feet. That distance, of course, is under ideal conditions. In reality we will encounter loose rock, steep climbs, tall vegetation, and potentially water crossings (it is a drainage and it often rains in the afternoon). We might also see hunters we would like to avoid.
The East route also follows a drainage through nature conservation land, across water conservation land, into a SWA (a different one than the West route) before entering private land then across BLM land. This route is 1.2 miles gaining 1,440 feet but it crosses private land. Turning to avoid the private land would have us crossing in a much steeper area and is less than ideal.
USGS map
Red - Diamond Window Cabin Route; Blue - West Route; Orange - East Route
Consulting a different map from USGS (US Geological Service) we found some old trails. These will not be maintained and might not even still exist. One of the trails ends near the East parking area going up the drainage. But there is still the problem of the private land.
Looking at the USGS map we noticed another old road farther west than the West route. This old road begins at a cabin called Diamond Window Cabin. There is a parking lot at the old cabin which is mainly used by hunters as this is the main access to the western SWA. We stopped by on September 1 to look at the conditions and did not immediately find the old road but even an old roadbed is helpful when you are on foot.
Diamond Window Cabin
Following the “road” the route is 1.9 miles with an elevation gain of 1,300 feet. This route, which I will call Diamond Window Cabin (DWC) starts in the SWA. The old road traverses the lower mountain to reach a drainage then turns northeast following the drainage. When the terrain levels out, the old road turns back east until it encounters the corner of private land but in a relatively flat area. The private land could easily be avoided by simply walking around it, if there is a fence, or continuing to follow the road if accessible. The DWC route then turns southeast for a final approach to the peak similar to the West option.
The DWC route is the longer of the three but is less steep and provides the possibility of an old road to find then follow.
Our route then will be DWC, sometime in the first two weeks of October. We have our permits. We’ll pack for the day and take our navigation gear. And we will dress for hunting season.
We stopped by again on September 26. Someone had driven up what we think is the old trail. Motorized vehicles are prohibited in the area but some people do what they want. Also, I‘m sure getting a deer or elk off a mountain is not the easiest thing. Their misbehavior has provided us with a bit of a trail through the grass, at least for a while.
Our Trailhead
Our final bit of planning was to look on Google Maps, satellite view. You can see trails but it is difficult to determine what is actually a trail, what might be a property boundary that just happens to show up on the image, and there are drainage areas that might not be a reasonable way to walk. Keeping all this in mind, I think we are ready.
One final detail, we have two friends joining us for the hike on October 2. Tune in here next Sunday to find out if we make it to the top. Even if we don’t it will be fun. Have I mentioned the fall color?
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