Gourd & Island Lakes-Indian Peaks Wilderness-Colorado-Backpacking-Three Days

Good morning. We are currently standing at the Monarch Lake Trailhead. We are on the west side of the Continental Divide of the Rockies and today we are headed out for our very first backpack trip of 2024. We're going back to Gourd Lake. It's about 7.3 miles each way. We're going to spend two nights up there and go to Island Lake the second day. Should be awesome. Yeah, lots of exploring and we're hoping to get to an unnamed lake with a huge waterfall. So let's get this journey going. Yep. So we have reached the point in our hike today where we are about to go up 1400 feet in elevation in just two miles. So this is what you would call the crux of the hike. The hardest portion of the entire trip. So we're taking a break. We're having some snacks. I got gummy worms. Dave's got trail mix. Yeah. You know and for a day hike this would be a very long day hike. People do do it as a day hike. But it's even harder when you're carrying your house on your back. Mine weighs 25 pounds and 35 to 40. Yeah. He carries all the big stuff. But we've done this a number of times and I feel great. How do you feel? I feel good. I feel great. You know we're going to get to the lake early afternoon and set up camp and do a lot of exploring. I can't wait. Skeeters. So we finally found a campsite. It took us an hour. There aren't necessarily designated designed campsites out here at Gord Lake. So it took a little hunting. It looks like there's only two other groups here. There's the group with all the horses and they got the peninsula right over there. And then a couple of guys to our left here. But we feel like we got a great space. Great views. And it's time for dinner. I'm having the pad thai with chicken. What are you having? I'm having a buffalo style chicken mac and cheese. Yeah. Fuel up for tomorrow. Yep. Well we made it to Island Lake. I am so happy. It was about a mile and a half of steep rugged terrain. Not too difficult. I wouldn't recommend doing this by yourself. Have a partner and make sure you have a GPS and you're good at route finding. Yep. Takes some pretty good route finding skills and it's there's about seven eight hundred feet elevation gain from Gord Lake. Yeah. We took our time. It took over two hours for us to get here. But it was very enjoyable. There were lots of waterfalls. Really pretty country. And we're going to be heading back. We're going to head back to our campsite and we might go on another little trek. This is our last evening here at Gord Lake. We had a very fun adventurous day heading up to Island Lake. We did try to get to the unnamed lake and huge waterfall. Once we crested the saddle and the boulder field and started to drop down, we could see some serious storm clouds coming. So we headed back. So we're going to have to save that adventure for another trip. What did you think of our day? It was great. Yeah. Good adventure up to Island Lake. Yeah. Dave's a great route finder. I would never venture out to do that on my own. And he picked the great path and everything was wonderful. Neither one of us fell, slipped, tripped. So that was an awesome hike. So we hope you've enjoyed our adventure here to Gord Lake and Island Lake and we will see you in the morning. We are back at the trailhead from our fabulous backpacking trip to Gord Lake and Island Lake. Our total mileage was 20.4 miles and 3,465 feet of elevation gain. And we will see you on the next hike.