This is not a recent image. This is from March 2009. This past weekend I went back to Rock Creek Falls with Journey, thinking that she would have no trouble getting down to the waterfall. I forgot one important thing about the hike, however.
We arrived at the trailhead and started the hike down to the creek on the One Eye Trail. It is so named because back in the old days a mountain lion attacked a miner on this trail and he lost an eye. I love these old names from history. We did not see any mountain lion but we did see quite a few deer. Journey was quite interested in the deer but they did not let us get very close to them.
The trail starts out as a nice wide road but soon becomes a single track. There is poison oak and there are ticks. It was impossible to keep Journey out of the poison oak. My primary concern was keeping the ticks off of her (and me). I went first on this section and swatted them off the bushes with my hiking pole as we went along. I did not see very many of them on the hike (less than 5). However, when we got back up to the road later I had to pluck about 6 or 7 of them off of Journey. How did she get so many ticks on her? I don’t understand, there should not have been any on her at all. I hoped I got them all off her. When I got home I found more on her and those ones were embedded and more difficult to remove. In retrospect, I should not have taken her on this hike, however, I did not think the ticks would be so bad because of the rain and cold weather. My mistake.
Anyway, we arrived down at Rock Creek. There was a lot of water flowing as I expected, but it was not in flood stage (as it was in March 2009). From here you need to rock scramble downstream. This is difficult. Journey did very well and we made it down almost to the brink of the waterfall, however at this point she could not continue any further. The water was too deep and it was too difficult or dangerous for her. At lower flows I think she could have made it but there was just too much water today. We retreated back upstream, had our lunch by the creek, and then climbed out of the canyon and back to the car. Even though we did not make it to the destination, it was still a great hike for Journey in Eldorado National Forest.
Yeah, the ticks on that trail are horrible! Glad you were able to get the embedded ones out. We got a “tick key” a while back and I find it the easiest and most effective way to get them out.
April 17th, 2024 at 8:34 am
Yeah, the ticks on that trail are horrible! Glad you were able to get the embedded ones out. We got a “tick key” a while back and I find it the easiest and most effective way to get them out.
I hate ticks
April 18th, 2024 at 5:13 am
Yes I have one of those. But she refused to let me get it so mom had to do it. Thanks.