Escaping The Nutshell

This hike was the first time we did one of our favorite loop hikes since the 2013 Colorado Front Range Flood when both bridges used for this hike were destroyed.

Knowing the bridges were gone, we brought our river sandals to cross it the old fashioned way. October is a good month to do this, since the North St Vrain Creek is low.

The map below shows the route we took. You can right click on the map image and open it in a new tab, then click on it to expand it for a more detailed view. Our GPS is broken, and we haven’t gotten a new one yet, so there are no GPS tracks.

The first crossing was made a few feet downstream of where the old bridge was, the water going up to about the knees. After that, we kept our river sandals on while hiking to the second crossing. There were a few spots along the way between the two crossings that were blocked by rock slides over the old forest road. This made us resort to wading through water on the creek side.

The second crossing was made about where the old bridge was. After that, the trail is mostly disappeared by grass, shrubs and rock slide from the flood. We did our best trying to follow it.

Due to rock slide, the forest road intersection with the North Sheep Mountain Trail was gone, but we soon found the trail and headed north along it. Before reaching Johnny Park Road, there is a trail junction, both of which end up on Johnny Park Road. We happened to take the left branch since it had been the longest time since we took that.

The hike took about 7 hours, with a lunch stop along Johnny Park Road. What slowed us down significantly was after the second creek crossing, during the switching from river sandals to hiking shoes, a hiking shoe of Stefan’s fell into the creek, and floated away before we could grab it. So Stefan finished the hike with a river sandal on one foot, and a hiking shoe on another. This required slower walking to reduce toe stubbing.

Pictures of the hike are below.