fantom Loc: Colorado

At the end of a four wheel drive road and downstream from a high mountain meadow there is a pretty little lake that has no roads nor trails leading to it. It is less than half a mile from the road but usually takes over an hour to hike to because of numerous stream crossings, thick forest, excessive deadfall, sporadic marshes and some ridge crossings. As a result very, very few people ever go there and we have never found any trash, debris nor fire rings at or near the lake.

Even using a map and GPS it takes a long time to get to it because of the obstacles and circuitous route. The stream in the picture of the meadow does not lead to the lake and the two are actually separated by a ridge or two. I think people trying to access the lake can't find it because they follow this stream and give up.

It seems that every time my son in law and I go there we end up crossing a sparsely gladded ridge that has an abandoned cabin that appears to be periodically lived in. Fearing disease, booby traps, contaminated needles etc., we've never entered it but have taken some pix from the small doorway. Downloading improves detail and color especially for cabin and meadow.

On the last trip we did some searching and luckily found an overgrown and abandoned trail that we figured had to be there somewhere---because of evidence of mining in the immediate area. There still is an active gold mine upstream several miles above the lake on private property and several abandoned mine sites near by. By following the faint and almost completely overgrown road for most of the way we returned to the truck in about 20 minutes. The lake has now become easily accessible and we will visit it more often---assuming we can re-find the overgrown road which does not intersect the 4X4 road and is pretty well hidden. Here are some pix of the area taken over the years. Downloading is recommended, especially for cabin, meadow and trail shots.

Aspens along road

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View of meadow beneath Continental Divide

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Typical view of terrain

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Cabin on ridge

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The wall is not collapsed but is in the shadows

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Cabin interior w/o popup flash

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The lake

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Nice pic of lens flare and water spots on lens from stream crossing

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Start of overgrown road back to truck

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UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

A beautiful and wonderful adventure for those of us who follow along, thanks for sharing.

fantom Loc: Colorado

Thanks for your comments. That's what the mountains are for, right, adventures and memories?

NMGal Loc: NE NM

I agree with UTMike.

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

A great adventure and story with images to support it. Thanks for sharing

fantom Loc: Colorado

me too

fantom Loc: Colorado

Thanks for commenting. Glad you liked it.

J-SPEIGHT Loc: Akron, Ohio

Enjoyable set

yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey

Wonderful set - beautiful images!

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

What a wonderful find.

blacks2 Loc: SF. Bay area

Fantastic landscapes.

David in Dallas Loc: Dallas, Texas, USA

Very nice! Obviously, someone was there before you (the cabin).

fantom Loc: Colorado

Thanks for your comments. The lake has certainly been visited many times before but the cabin is not at the lake itself, it is one ridge over from it.

The old road runs right by the lake. Also, one side of the lake is very straight. You rarely see that. It looks like it might have been bull dozed or dredged years ago. Also, both sides of the lake are thick with new growth trees, indicating to me that something happened to the original trees, maybe mowed down versus fire or blow down.

There is also a small dam at the bottom end. The big meadow in one of the pictures I posted had been a lake until 30 years ago when its leaking dam was removed. (I'd caught many fish in that lake because it was sparsely visited due to the difficult road into it.)

I am speculating that the lake we visited was once a small pond that was enlarged at one time for water storage or some similar purpose to support mining. The nice thing about the lake is that it appears that people do not regularly visit it these days.

PhotogHobbyist Loc: Bradford, PA

Your description and photos could very wel be transitioned into a great mystery or adventure novel by the right author. I can imagine a few scenarios for that myself, alas, I am not the author type. Perhaps Stephen King or James Patterson, or Harlan Coban could make a good one.

fantom Loc: Colorado

Though the lake is not really mysterious you make an interesting point. In early spring 2019 I was driving a rough back road looking for the snow line and encountered a county sheriff coming towards me. We chatted awhile and he said he was doing the same thing as me--checking on road conditions.

He mentioned that he is always on the look out for "camps" or "settlements" in the mountains inhabited by homeless folks or people who want to stay hidden. They occasionally raid these camps and find that 8 out of 10 people they question have warrants out against them ranging from non-payment of child support to drug dealing to attempted murder. There are not too many of these groups of people but they are usually near large towns.

Coincidently, I just finished reading a book by C J Box called "Nowhere to Run" that addresses that issue--- of people hiding from the law and society deep in the mountains. Based on the authors you mentioned you might like Box's books. This one is horribly edited and some of the scenes are outlandish but the overall story is pretty good. He is not shy about describing government and politicians corruption contributing to the problem. I found the book on line at Barnes and Noble and they delivered it outside the store.