I only started hiking in Eagles Nest Wilderness last year, so I’m not really that familiar with the terrain. If I get some of the details of the geography or the boundaries incorrect, I apologize.
Eagles Nest Wilderness was established in 1976. The mountains in the wilderness are the southern peaks of the Gore Range. The Gore Range goes roughly from Tenmile Peak in the south to Rabbit Ears Pass in the north. In various places in this 1400 square mile area are Gore Creek, Gore Lake, Gore Pass, and Gore Canyon.
Gore Creek runs through Vail and joins the Eagle River about five miles below the town. Gore Creek is fed by the outlet streams from other lakes I’ve recently hiked to: Pitkin, Booth, and Deluge. As, for example, Pitkin Creek originates from Pitkin Lake, one might expect Gore Creek to originate from Gore Lake. This is not correct. Gore Creek begins at an unnamed lake about two and a half miles south of Gore Lake as the crow flies.
Why so many places named “Gore”? I have found three possibilities.
Some say that the name for Gore Pass originated from its wedge shape. (A gore is a triangular piece, say, of cloth or land. On an Interstate highway, the triangle between the traffic lanes and the on-ramp or off-ramp is the gore point.) Once the pass got its name, it spread to the other geographical features.
Other folks, including Henry Gannett (a member of the Hayden Survey of 1871, which came nowhere near this area) claimed the name honored George Gore, a Denver gunsmith.
Those possibilities are boring. The third origin story is that all these places are named for Sir St. George Gore. There are quite a few tall tales about the man. He was from Sligo, Ireland, and was a big fan of hunting. He arrived in St. Louis in 1853 and in the following few years hired Jim Bridger as a guide. Due to Gore’s “peculiar disposition”, Bridger charged him thirty dollars a day to put up with him. One of the tall tales is that Gore was the real discoverer of gold in the Rockies, but he kept quiet about it because he didn’t want to spoil the hunting.
Gore’s hunting expedition, which lasted nearly three years and is believed to have cost half a million dollars (about twenty million in 2024 dollars) is said to have included forty men, one hundred and twelve horses, twelve yoke of oxen, fourteen hunting dogs, six wagons, and twenty-one carts full of champagne. The exact number of animals killed by Gore is unknown, but he claimed to have killed 105 bears, 1,600 deer and elk, and 2,000 buffalo. At the end of the expedition, he had agreed to sell his equipage to the American Fur Company in St. Louis but a last-minute dispute over the price put Gore in a bad mood and he burned it all. Oh, and the expedition never visited the mountain range that bears his name.
The hike to Gore Lake is similar to the other hikes I’ve mentioned: Pitkin, Booth, and Deluge. Gore Creek flows through a valley that has a series of hanging valleys above it. To reach any of these lakes, you have to climb out of the lower valley, up steep slopes to reach the hanging valleys, and then proceed up the valley before another steep rise to whichever lake is the goal. For Pitkin, Booth, and Deluge, the hike starts with the climb out of the valley but to reach Gore Lake, we have to hike up the lower valley a few miles to reach Gore Lake’s hanging valley.
Tuesday, July 30
Having learned on my Deluge Lake hike that there’s no shortage of parking at the trailhead, I could dispense with the shuttle bus and start the hike as early as I wanted. This hike is a bit longer than the others (AllTrails says 6.0 miles each way; Caltopo maps has it at 5.8), so I had some concerns as to how long this little walk would take me. I averaged only a bit more than a mile an hour on the other hikes. But because the elevation gain isn’t quite so great, I was hoping I’d be able to maintain a somewhat brisker pace. I reckoned that I should be able to reach the lake in about four hours.
In preparation, I mentally broke the hike down into two sections. The first section is the hike up the valley to the junction with the spur trail that goes to the lake. The second section is the spur trail, which begins with the climb up to the hanging valley. After the initial steep climb, the trail mellows quite a bit before reaching the final ascent to the lake.
The first four miles of the hike are quite pleasant. The elevation gain isn’t remarkable, and while the trail isn’t often close to the creek, it passes through a varied, not-very-dense forest. Sometimes aspen, sometimes pine, with occasional breaks in the tree cover revealing the valley walls. There are a couple of short stretches where it looks like a forest fire burned through here maybe a decade or more ago.
When I reached the spur trail that leads to Gore Lake, I came across something I’ve never encountered on a hike before: a gravesite.
Here we get to the crux of the hike: climbing up to the hanging valley, six hundred feet up in about a kilometer.
I tried to keep my mind off the steepness by doing some math. I estimated how many steps it would be to the lake. Number of miles times the number of feet in a mile, divided by my stride length. Take one percent of that and start counting. The number of steps I came up with was wrong, but it doesn’t matter. If I wanted to know how many steps, I could look at my FitBit. But I did count out my incorrect 1% twelve times before I quit, and by then I was nearly done with the climb.
The rest of the hike to the lake is quite nice. There’s a final lift of four hundred feet, but it’s not as steep as the climb out of the lower valley. The trail offers plenty of open views of the surrounding peaks.
Gore Lake is quite scenic. It’s not a stark lake surrounded by talus and tundra, it’s a bit below treeline and has a smattering of trees. It also seems to be a regular hangout for a herd of mountain goats. I chatted with a couple of folks who hike here regularly. They said they see the goats every time they’re here. They seem quite habituated to people and even use the trails along the lakeshore.
Of the four hikes I’ve done from trailheads in Vail, I enjoyed this one the most. It’s longer than the others but isn’t quite as strenuous. The noise from the highway fades more quickly, and I think this is the prettiest of the four lakes. It’s definitely worth a visit, if you’re up to the task.
| Segment | Distance | Elev Change | Time | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trailhead to ENW boundary | 0.4 mi | 786’/mi | 0:14 | 1.8 mph |
| ENW boundary to spur trail | 3.7 mi | 307’/mi | 2:00 | 1.8 mph |
| Spur trail to Lake | 1.7 mi | 702’/mi | 1:38 | 1.1 mph |
| Trailhead to Lake | 5.8 mi | 460’/mi | 3:52 | 1.5 mph |