This year's big trip was to the Flat Tops Wilderness in central Colorado. I scouted this area a couple of times this summer because the trailhead was 35 miles from the nearest road. This year I went to the southern portion of the wilderness. South Meadows trailhead to be specific.
This trailhead is 1 mile from the end of FR600. Be sure you're prepared as this is a pretty lonely area except for the dude ranch at the end of the road. Budges Resort.
The trailhead is well marked. The first 1.5. hours gets you to the crossing of the White river. I wouldn't try crossing this one in the spring/early summer. There is no bridge, so some scouting along the river bank is required.
After the the river crossing comes the 1000ft climb to get on top of the flat tops. After that I enjoyed a couple of days scouting around at the first big lake. I moved on to my final destination...Oyster lake. Somewhere during this hike I hurt my knee and had to limit myself to moderate day hikes.
During one of these hikes I came accross what was left of a weather balloon. I retrieved the instrument package and cleaned up the rest of the balloon. I'm still waiting to hear back from NOAA on how to get it back to them.
My knee pain forced a early hike out as I didn't know how bad the injury was and I was 15 miles from my truck.
Hopefully I think I'll venture back to this area next year and finish the route I had planned on doing. I'll post the pictures on this site soon of the trip
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