Continuing north, I arrived at Summit Lake, which was on a broad, treeless expanse between mountains near Green River Pass. When author Colin Fletcher was age 67, he walked this same way past the lake on a stormy day that was much like today. He wasn't on a hike to Canada, however.
Fletcher was starting on a journey that would go the entire length of the Colorado River from its source.
In his research before beginning his audacious trip, he discovered the Colorado's source was the Green River, and its source was actually somewhere above here near Knapsack Col. That was a problem. He had given himself six months to make the trip and wanted to be through the Grand Canyon by November. If he waited until the snow and ice melted at the source, he would be too late in the season to complete the 1,700-mile distance in his allotted time.
That didn't sit well with Fletcher. If you've read any of his books, such as his memoir The Man Who Walked Through Time or his masterwork The Complete Walker, you know he was particular about everything.
"I therefore decided to accept as 'my' source a small, unnamed lake at the head of Trail Creek, four straight-line miles from Knapsack Col," he wrote. Then he added, "Naturally, I disliked even this minor fudge."
Fletcher documented his long and remarkable journey in River: One Man's Journey Down the Colorado, Source to Sea.
"But the lake lies only 150 vertical feet lower than Peak Lake; and Trail Creek is barely two miles shorter than the master stream, which it soon joins," Fletcher wrote. "Besides, there was something about the lie of the land on the map-perhaps the way Trail Creek formed a logical, straight-line extension of the main river that made it seem the right kind of place to start."