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| Hiking Trip from
Collins Gulf Access to Stone Door Ranger Station |
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| This is a full report on a hiking trip I took on January 25, 2005, and I do mean FULL. | |||
| This was a one way, 9.4 mile trip from the Collins Gulf Access to the Stone Door Ranger Station. I had been wanting to take this trip for years. I never imagined that I would be doing it solo. The map below shows the journey in blue. | |||
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The plan was to drive my van to the Collins West Access parking lot (only about a mile from where we live), hike to Stone Door, then call Shannon to come and pick me up. We would then pick up the van on the drive back home. |
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The first thing to do was to call Stone Door Ranger
Station and let them know that I am entering at Collins Gulf and will
exit sometime during the day over there.
The temperature on this morning was in the upper 20's, but was expected to reach the lower 50's. I entered at Collins Gulf Access (#1) at 8:00 am. I roughly planned the trip to be about 8 hours. It couldn't be over 9 hours or I would be in the dark. |
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| The first stop just five minutes into the hike was here at Collins Gulf Overlook (#2). I will be hiking all the way down this gulf, and that will be the halfway point! | |||
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| On the way down toward Suter Falls, I started seeing a
lot of ice hanging off the rocks. I started to get worried, because
there is a huge rock overhang at Suter Falls that I have to go under to
continue the hike.
From this point, the roar of Rocky Mountain Creek and Suter Falls can easily be heard. I was really hoping that the ice situation would not be very bad. |
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| But it was. This is obviously very dangerous. These icicles are the very reason there is no bridge over Rocky Mountain Creek. Every bridge built so far has been destroyed by these huge icicles falling. So the only option is to hop across the rocks. During periods of heavy rain, the trail is impassible. | |||
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| I spent much more time at Suter Falls (#3) than I had allotted because of carefully navigating through the ice. I was constantly looking above for icicles that could be aiming for me. | |||
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| After spending about 20 minutes at Suter Falls, I was able to continue down Collins Gulf Trail. The trail immediately starts a descent towards the Collins River. On the way, I saw and heard several large icicles fall in the distance. By 9:00, I was at the bottom of the Gulf, and the trail joined an old jeep trail or logging road. The trail is now running parallel with the Collins River. At 9:20, after hiking 2.6 miles, I reached Horsepound Falls (#4). | |||
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| Not far downstream from Horsepound Falls,
the entire volume of this river disappears underground.
From this point on, there was no cell phone service until arrival at Stone Door. Continued on the next page. |
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