LITTLE COTTONWOOD CREEK
March 12, 2005
By Tim Briese
The Little Cottonwood Creek drainage lies just east of the Arkansas River a few miles southeast of Buena Vista. For years I had driven past this area on my way to climb the majestic Sawatch peaks on the other side of the river, never giving these wooded hills much thought. Articles in the newspaper about the Browns Canyon Wilderness Study Area, which encompasses much of the general area on the east side of the Arkansas between Buena Vista and Salida, piqued my interest in this region, though. The relatively low-elevation canyons and hills in this area typically receive little snow, so it seemed like a good place for a late winter hike while the higher mountains were still snowbound.
I left home on Saturday morning with my wife Teresa and friends Hal and Linda on an outing to do this hike and stay overnight in Buena Vista. The stated purpose of this weekend outing with our friends was to celebrate my 50th birthday, which had taken place a few days before. From Johnson Village we drove south about three and a half miles on Highway 285 and then went east on a county road across the river to the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area site at Ruby Mountain. We parked at a trailhead just to the east of the recreation area and then embarked upon the hike.
The trail went past the eastern slopes of Ruby Mountain, an interesting rocky summit just a couple of hundred feet high that is often frequented by gem collectors. We made a short side-trip to climb to its summit, on a trail that was steep and loose on its upper reaches. From the top we had a commanding view of the Arkansas River Valley and the high snowcapped peaks of the Sawatch Range beyond.
After descending back to the base of this little mountain we proceeded eastward on a trail through the woods that climbed gradually up to a minor pass before descending into the Little Cottonwood Creek drainage. Along the way we stopped for a pleasant lunch break on some rocky outcroppings. The day was sunny and warm, a pleasant treat for early March.
After lunch we continued down the trail to the bottom of the drainage, having covered a little over a mile from Ruby Mountain. There was no water in the drainage today, only a few patches of snow. We decided to explore the drainage upstream for a ways and then return and follow it all the way down to the Arkansas River. We hiked up the winding drainage for a mile or more, through woods and meadows, admiring cliffy outcroppings above. The further up the drainage we went the more the canyon widened out into a valley that held expansive meadows in the midst of the woods. After going as far as we cared to we turned around and headed back down the drainage. When we came around a bend we were quite surprised to meet a male jogger coming up the trail, wearing nothing but jogging shorts and tennis shoes, and carrying no gear whatsoever. After he passed by I remarked that the guy would have faced a very cold night in the woods if he sprained an ankle on the rocky trail and became incapacitated!
The canyon became more interesting when we descended into its lower portion below our entry point. It became narrower and rather rugged, with high rock walls towering a few hundred feet above. This area is said to harbor a large population of mountain lions, and we saw deer bones lying in a couple of places that served as a stark reminder of this fact. Hal teased that he saw a paw move on a rock high above. We came to a couple of places where some rock scrambling was necessary to negotiate rocky drop-offs, which was quite a bit of fun.
We continued down the canyon in a southwesterly direction until we finally emerged from its mouth and found ourselves standing on the banks of the Arkansas River. The river was quite a pretty sight in the golden rays of the late afternoon sun. Directly across the river was a big RV park, on the outskirts of Nathrop. A man stood outside his trailer across the river and curiously eyed us for a while. We hiked back up the gentle valley along the east side of the river, passing below the west face of Ruby Mountain, and returned to our car late in the afternoon. We hiked about five or six miles on this nice little adventure.
We drove into Buena Vista and enjoyed a delightful steak dinner at Quincy=s that evening, and had a pleasant stay at the Vista Inn that night.
