When It Rains, It Snows: Fordyce Creek Trail

We only got to spend two days on the Fordyce Creek Trail. Arriving on Tuesday, we wheeled in Wednesday morning and spent the first day crawling the Winch Hills, discovering the Pools, and looking for good rocks for skipping at the water crossings. That night, we bailed out via the Signal Tower Trail back to camp, stopping to enjoy the view from 7770ft.



Wednesday was nice and comfortable, but Thursday was damn chilly. In the morning we returned via Signal Peak to continue up the main Fordyce trail to Summit City. Initially we intended to just do that last leg and then shoot straight back to camp, but an impromptu attempt at shortcut discovery put us on track to do the whole Fordyce Creek trail backward Thursday afternoon.



Things were going fine except for some concern about fuel in Berne's rig. With no gauge on his fuel cell and lots of downhill slopes starving the feed line pickup, we expected any trouble to catch him first. Everyone was surprised when Hugh was the one to run out of gas. We came to the last water crossing on our way out, and Hugh and I barely made it out of the creek when his 454 stumbled and died. Not sure what the problem was at first, Hugh could barely get the hood up before the first raindrops began to fall.

With Berne, Amber and Yogi waiting at the top of the hill, the rain didn't last a full minute before the drops got slower, whiter, and fluffier. Hugh and I decided that he would stay with his Blazer, and I'd ride out with Berne and we'd bring gas back. It was 8pm, getting dark fast, and Berne had no headlights. I climbed aboard and clung onto the roll cage. Amber held the dog in the passenger seat, and we all tried to find the trail by the dim glow of the rock lights alone.

We knew Berne was low on fuel, so no time was wasted hustling out of there. I think I only bruised a rib or two getting my eagle claw death grip worked out holding onto the cage. We were covering lots of ground, but the snow kept falling harder and faster. We all started thinking we should have made it back to camp by then. An unfamiliar trail gets a lot longer when you're in a hurry and conditions are deteriorating. We finally got to camp, but what little reserve gas we had there wasn't enough to fuel up Berne, wheel back in to meet Hugh, and get them both out reliably, so next we had to drop the trailer, jump in the tow rig and head out to find a gas station.

What followed was a wild goose chase that wasted a good twenty minutes but taught me not to trust the exit numbers in my handheld GPS. After seeing a Cadillac sideways in the median and a couple other cars pulled off on the shoulder, we found a gas station that had a Burger King attached. We filled up the gas cans and grabbed some Jr Whoppers and Gardenburgers and jumped back on Interstate 80 only to get stuck behind some Sheriff's Deputy setting pace on the treacherous snow-covered highway and blinding everyone with his blue lights. By the time we made it back to camp, it'd been two hours since we left Hugh.

While we were gone, he donned rain gear and built a nest of tow straps under his truck, tried to stay warm and found little comfort in a cold can of chili.

Back at camp, I lashed the gas cans to Berne's rig, we suited up in our rain gear, grabbed a spotlight, and a couple tarps (in case we had to spend the night) and got moving. It was snowing harder still, and following the trail became that much more difficult with a three inch blanket of powder on everything. The snow also created several sketchy sections that threatened to put us sideways or worse, out of communications with Hugh or Amber or anybody else.

But never fear, Berne had it under control. He finessed it through those sections, and throttled through a few others. Besides a new bypass or two and zigzagging back and forth across the trail in some more open spots, we made pretty good time in those conditions. It was 11pm before we made it to Hugh, though. The snow was falling in clumps, visibility was low, and we didn't want to waste any time before the snow started hiding our tracks out.

Luckily, Hugh really was just out of gas and it wasn't the fuel pump or anything worse. After a few moments cranking away, the Blazer rumbled back to life and we got to gettin' it. We weren't 100 yards back up the trail when the batteries on my GPS died, but we still had our tracks to follow out - so long at we could remember to avoid the detours and beat out the snow. Getting out wasn't too difficult - mostly just kick ass snow wheeling. Hugh almost laid the Blazer over once on a nice slick slope of granite, but a log lying just right propped him up and he powered through. With us in the lead with the spotlight, and Hugh following with two actual headlights and more, we wheeled on outta there through the whirling snow and sagging tree branches, dumping loads of snow on us every time we brushed by.

We got back to camp after midnight. A little wet, pretty cold, and ready to call it a day, but a good day. A great day. Indeed, a Team Fat Shit day.