This morning we parked our gear-laden truck near Pueblo Summit at the head of Big Creek, close to the trailhead for Mosquito Ridge. Yes, you read that right: Mosquito Ridge. Although, at the time, that particular vernacular had not fully sunk into my blissfully ignorant brain. We had already been out for a few days in the area, around the town of Edwardsburg (population 25 in summer, 0 in winter).
But now we are finally back on the real trail, the roadless trail, the trail you can only get to by your own power… or if you’re lucky, the power of four-legged helpers. We are free again of civilization, for better or for worse, and marching only to the tick of the sun rising and setting, the weather, and the wolves. It feels good to be back out, though it is a bit of a shock to our bodies as we shouldered heavy packs (Isaac’s weighed 95 lbs.!!) and waddled up the trail.
It is a long and steady grind up to Mosquito Ridge, and you might ask, “why would one want to go to a place called ‘Mosquito Ridge’ anyhow?” and it would be a perfectly valid question. We were already being sucked free of blood as we packed up our gear at the truck, ate the last hardboiled eggs, and picked willow branches to swish at our shoulders as we walked. But for some reason, it did not sink in for me, until we were well on our way, well beyond the point of turning back.
We decided we would simply go as slow as we needed to in order to be careful with our bodies, soft from almost two weeks in the front country. However, we soon realized that the ratio of flesh losing blood to mosquitoes, to the flesh not loosing blood to mosquitoes, was directly related to how fast you could walk… So it was a constant battle to walk slowly and gently for our legs, and to keep up enough momentum to have a few less whiners swirling the air around our ears. Mosquito Ridge was our route. Not to be changed now. Besides, it was the most direct way into the Chamberlain basin, our destination.
Once we got up onto the ridge, the mosquitoes got worse, making it hard to even stop and take a rest. We learned to have our wind-proof fleece jackets at the ready, so as soon as we stopped, no matter how sweaty and hot we were ( and we were hot and sweaty for sure!) we would whip them on and enjoy a few minutes where at least our arms and shoulders and backs were off limits to the insatiable appetites of those most annoying of insects.
We camped that night at a beautiful spot. Though “beautiful” refers specifically to the view, and not the physical circumstances. We were on a high ridge, a nice grassy meadow with trees falling away in every direction and an endless vista of gentle mountain ridges overlapping each other like a paper Mache sculpture. The meadow was dotted with the last of the Lupines and Indian Paintbrush. Mosquito Springs sprang up less than fifty meters away, where we sucked up cool, clear, delicious water in gulping slurps, bathed, and filled all our water containers. But that is where the “beautiful” ends. The air was filled with the thickest mosquitoes I had seen to date (very quickly to be over-ridden by where we camped the second night, but at this point I was still oblivious). Besides the fact that we had to cook dinner while inside our tent, sticking just our arms out to tend the stove, saving as much skin as possible from the voracious bugs, it was lovely.
We watched the last of the pink sunlight fade from the mountain ridges around us from the blissfully peaceful inside of our mesh tent. Smiling up at the coating of hungry insects sticking their proboscises through the netting and finding nothing. We slept the sleep of the very tired…
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