Rene was not feeling well this morn- ing so I hiked by my- self. One of the highly rated trails in the area leads to Devil’s Causeway. It took me about 70 minutes to drive to the trail head at Stillwater Reservoir. The drive is beautiful going through the towns of
The temperature at the reservoir was 40º and the elevation is 10,255. The trail (#1120) follows the north shore of the reservoir then veers off to the right as trail # 1119. It winds through the woods as it gradually climbs, goes through a meadow, then climbs again to Little Causeway Lake. From there the trail becomes steeper and climbs to another meadow before entering open space above tree line and climbing steeply through a series of switchbacks. I encountered snow on the ground almost from the start. The higher I went the deeper the snow got until near the high end of the trail I encountered a waist deep drift that I had to go around. From there until Devil’s Causeway the snow was at least ankle deep. The Causeway is a narrow ledge of rock with sheer drops on either side at an elevation of 11,600 feet. Since it is only safe to cross when dry, I stopped at this point, had lunch (temperature about 25º) and turned around and headed back down. Hiking time up for the three miles was 2 hours and nine minutes and return time was an hour and forty minutes. The views all the way up and down were fantastic. The only thing missing was my hiking partner.
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