Day 052 - Continental Divide Trail - Hancock Ghost Town to Sanford Creek

Day: 052

Date: Thursday, 27 June 2024

Start:  Hancock Ghost Town 

Finish:  Sanford Creek

Daily Kilometres:  32.5

GPX Track:  Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos

Total Kilometres:  1525.6

Weather:  Cold to mild, overcast with showers and a thunderstorm in the late afternoon.

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Pop tarts

  Lunch:  Snacks

  Dinner:  Rehydrated meals 

Aches:  Dave - very tired and the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported.

Highlight:  Nothing in particular.

Lowlight:  Trying to find our way around Mirror Lake was a nightmare.  The lake had burst its banks and the 4WD track we were following, which borders one side of the lake, was under water, reputedly up to 4’ deep.  First we tried to follow a faint track around the other side of the lake through the dense forest but gave up because of the number of trees down.  We then tried, after fording the flooding inlet stream, bush-bashing around the other side above the flooded road through thick tangles of willows which took forever.  All up, we spent over an hour covering less than a mile and patience was running thin.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

The day's walking started OK, with us following an old railway bed up a valley towards a rail tunnel which we never saw and may no longer be accessible.  There was lots of snowmelt running across and along the track and it was hard to keep your feet dry.

After a while, our trail left the old railway bed and climbed steeply, traversing a snow field which we found challenging, but not so two trail runners going the other way who bounded down through the snow whooping and hollering.

The pattern of our day became climbing through passes at 12000+’, crossing snow on the way and then descending to a valley before steeply climbing to the next pass.  It was overcast and some of the peaks were in cloud, but the scenery was still awesome.  The trail, however, throughout the day, was not awesome.  We were following the Mirror Lake Alternate, and most of it was along  steep, rocky, wet and muddy 4WD tracks.  Our hopes of making good time evaporated, especially when we encountered the flooding Mirror Lake (see above).

We did see some ATV and quad-bike riders and also met three mountain bike riders pushing their bikes up a neverending hill, who seemed to be having as much fun as us on the trail.

A thunderstorm rolled in towards the end of the day and we again ended up setting up camp in light rain around 6:30pm, disappointed with how far we had travelled given the effort expended.