It was a Memorial Day weekend and I was looking to make a two day backpacking trip to the mountains. Many access roads were still closed, so I chose to start yet again from the Hessie Trailhead, around 9000ft, just outside of Eldora. The snow was mostly gone at the trailhead, but as we headed up the Devils Thumb Trail, there was still lots of it. The area got upwards of five feet of snow from a monster snow storm in March, and it showed. It did not take long before we put snowshoes on. Shortly after, we lost the trail, bushwhacked up a steep slope and generally worked a little too hard in the wet snow. It was a very warm day and an afternoon thunderstorm rumbled around before we reached Jasper Lake, 10,840 ft, after four hours of hiking.
The sky cleared up overnight and the snow barely froze up. Instead of going up Jasper Peak, as we initially considered, we ended up climbing an unnamed peak, 12,274 ft, near Devils Thumb Pass above our camp. Another thunderstorm rolled through as we headed down back to the trailhead.
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