Ahhhh... Our last "civilized" breakfast for the next four days at the Main Street Cafe in Aspen then off to the trailhead and we were on our way by 9:00 AM.
Day one by design is a relative easy day. We headed out on Maroon Snowmass Trail for a 1.75 mile hike to Crater Lake. One mile past Crater Lake we had our first crossing of West Maroon Creek. The creek was shallow and it was an easy crossing. We continued on the West Maroon Trail to a second crossing of West Maroon Creek - while the water was a bit deeper and faster it was still an easy crossing at this time of the year. We set up our first camp about .5 miles past the second crossing at around 1:15 PM for a day one total of 5.5 miles.
Ty had very specific requirements for our campsite. It had to be sheltered and have a great view. We found that on a hill overlooking a valley and the river and set up camp - or so we thought! While exploring the area Ty stumbled across the "perfect" site - it even had a dinning table.
So, up came the tent stakes and we moved our home. It was a very pleasant and a perfect first day. By late afternoon, it started clouding up and we had some very light hail and rain showers.
Just down the trail from us, we met a group of 5 backpackers who would be following our same itinerary. They had all met each other on Backpackers.com and were from Colorado, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina. As it turned out, we would leapfrog that group over the next 3 days.
Our dinner that night was Southwestern Chicken - comes in a package - just add boiling water and let sit for 13 minutes. Actually, we all agreed it was quite tasty - OK we won't be serving it our next gourmet club dinner - but it was better than we had anticipated. Desert was some sort of berry and cheesecake - it didn't turn out as well as dinner - we ended up drinking our cheesecake.
Early to bed (8:30 PM - nightfall)
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