SUMMARY: Looking at our maps, we thought this would be “Cirque of the Towers Day” — we planned to follow a Ley alternative route to get there. At first it went well; we were hiking on nice trail in a magnificent valley with towering rock spires, a beautiful river, green grass, wildflowers…but at the end of the valley, the trail faded and stopped.

“No problem” we thought. “The map says follow the creek and then up the mountainside on the north side of the lake where the creek starts.” But no, there was nothing but an impossibly steep wall there–no trail. We spent the rest of the day searching—no trail. So we finally gave up and headed sadly back. What a magnificent valley—but we wasted a whole day.

DETAILS:  When we got up this morning, we figured it wouldn’t take long to hike the couple of miles to the turnoff junction for Ley’s red route to Cirque of the Towers.  Well, those were two tough, rough, steep miles that took longer than we planned.  I actually prefer uphills–downhills on rough trail are really hard for me.  But finally we reached Little Sandy creek and found the junction (it even had a sign!).  We happily turned right and soon reached another key junction, also marked with a sign.  One trail went to Big Sandy Lake, and the other trail was the Ley route.

As we walked along “our” trail, we did get nice views of Little Sandy Lake down below (actually, it’s pretty big–not sure why they call it “little”??)  Then we reached a spectacularly beautiful valley with amazing rock towers and spires.  “Wow!” we said to each other, “This is almost as good as Cirque of the Towers, except it’s not a cirque!”   The trail continued on up the valley, following a creek.  The wildflowers were gorgeous, and there were huge boulders and rocks with layers in them that were bent and twisted.  Fixit and I walked along oohing and ahhing.  It was amazing.

But the valley came to an end with sheer walls all around, and the nice trail disappeared.  At first this didn’t worry us–we’ve sort of gotten used to the idea that the CDT does this–and a look at our maps was very reassuring.  All we had to do was follow the creek up to its source (a lake) and then from the north side of the lake, the trail would switchback up to the top of the ridge and down the other side.

But when we got to the lake, we found that the north side was an impossibly steep wall, with no sign of a trail.  Hmmm.  Out came the maps again, and we thought, “Maybe the trail goes up that canyon near the lake?  It is sort of on the north side, sort of.”  So we climbed up the canyon to have a look.  The end of the canyon was another very steep wall with no sign of trail.  So we decided that Fixit would climb up it to the top and look around.  If he spotted the route, he would signal to me by waving his trek poles, and at that point, I would climb up, too.  If he couldn’t find it, he would just come back down.

Fixit was gone for quite awhile.  He did reach the top, but then disappeared (to look around, I hoped!)  I waited and waited and waited, praying he would be safe and would be able to find out where to go.  I tried to keep my mind occupied by looking at the spectacular view back down the valley.  But finally Fixit reappeared and started coming down.  Oh no.  That meant no way through.  When he reached the spot where I was, he said, “I couldn’t see any sign of trail or route or anything, and going down the other side would be more than I think you could handle.  It’s pretty scary-looking.”

So very sadly, we turned and started back down to the valley below.  It was about 5:00 by the time we were on the valley floor again.  Soon we found the trail and started heading back.  Awhile later, we met Stop ‘n Go and two other guys heading up.  We told them what had happened to us, but they decided to go for it anyway.  Hope they make it!  They are all young strong guys, so I figure they will.

Now we are camped partway back to the main trail, with almost an entire day of hiking wasted.  Megabummer.  Now we won’t be able to see Cirque of the Towers–we’ll have to hike as fast as we can, with no side trips.  But that valley we went through today was magnificent, and we are grateful we could see it!