Escaping The Nutshell

2014-12-07 Irvin Homestead

The Lion Gulch Trailhead was still closed, so we parked at a pulloff east of the trailhead. Hiking down to the Little Thompson, the destruction from the flood was impressive. The hiker bridge was gone, and the old trail paralleling the Little Thompson was also gone. They are in the process of building some bridges for a new hiking trail.

We eventually picked up the trail where it begins to rise well above the Little Thompson, and we followed it for a short distance up to a sharp bend where we departed, heading up the ridge that parallels the Lion Gulch Trail on its north side.

We continued along this ridge, topping out on a couple knobs, and eventually coming across a trail that we took to Homestead Meadows. At the meadows, we stopped at the Irwin Homestead and took some video, then headed west to the Griffith Homestead, and finally back along the Lion Gulch Trail.

The Lion Gulch Trail in the gulch is impressively damaged in places. In some of these places it's very hard to hike through. Info on its restoration is here.

A U.S. Forest Service booklet on the history of Homestead Meadows can be found here.

We started the hike a little before 11:00, and finished at 15:39.

Tracks for entire hike

2014-12-07 Elevation profile: Homestead Meadows