wigwam - trail #609

Description

This trail provides a less-crowded alternative to the Goose Creek Trailhead. The trail accesses the east side of the Lost Creek Wilderness by following the Wigwam Creek drainage up to an open meadow called Wigwam Park and onto a saddle at the end of the valley. Beyond the saddle, the trail drops down into East Lost Park, then crosses Lost Creek and continues west up the creek to the Lost Park Trailhead. Granite domes along the trail present many opportunities for rock climbing and the nearby streams provide good fishing.

From the Wigwam Trailhead parking area, follow the signs a short distance on an old logging road to a sign on your right where the trail leaves the road. The trail heads generally northwest along Wigwam Creek. The trail rises with a moderate, gradually steepening grade into Wigwam Park. Wigwam Park has a number of beaver ponds and campsites. In Wigwam Park, the trail intersects the north end of the Goose Creek Trail, which runs up a valley to the south and over a pass into the Lost Creek drainage. Just west of the Goose Creek junction, the trail intersects the south end of the Rolling Creek Trail. From here the Rolling Creek Trail climbs steeply to the north, over a ridge, and down the north side to the Colorado-Rolling Creek trailhead on Forest road 560, west of Wellington Lake.

From Wigwam Park the trail continues its gentle rise to the pass at the end of the valley and then descends into East Lost Park, an open valley surrounded by outcrops and domes of Pikes Peak granite. In the middle of the park, the trail crosses Lost Creek and then follows it upstream to the Lost Park Trailhead and its intersection with the Brookside-McCurdy Trail.

TRAIL'S HISTORY

W. W. Webster, a cowman, built the trail up Wigwam Creek and over into Lost Park and out to South Park. He ran cattle over the trail enroute to the mining camps. At the east end of East Lost Park is a three sided log shelter, likely a relic of those early days of grazing in the park.

When white men began coming to Lost Park, it was summer home to a large herd of mountain buffalo, a smaller version of the buffalo of the plains. As cattle grazing increased and the Wigwam and Hooper trails provided hunters access into the park, the herd diminished. By the early 1890’s, although the herd was considered one of the largest still running wild, concerns were being expressed over the killing off of the buffalo in Lost Park. In 1897 a party of hunters ended the Lost Park mountain buffalo herd.