A little bit less than eight miles east of downtown Vail, Deluge Lake lies 11,748′ above sea level at the head of a scenic alpine valley embraced by the flanks of Snow Peak, Mt. Valhalla, Grand Traverse, and the forgetably named Peak 12485.
The lake is reached via a trail that starts at the Gore Creek trailhead just east of Vail proper.
I’ll pull the bandaid off this one quickly: the trail climbs well over three thousand feet in about four and a half miles. Alltrails says it’s 3444′, but according to the maps, the net gain is only (“only”, he says!) 3035′. The four-hundred-foot difference, then, is in miscellaneous dips and rises.
You can break it down into three sections. The first bit runs from the trailhead to about 11,000′. That’s roughly two and a quarter miles, for a slope of a bit more than a thousand feet per mile. The next section is about a mile and ends up still at 11000′, but it rises and falls a bit, so it’s not flat and level. The last section is a bit less than a mile and climbs the remaining 750′ (or a bit more), again with a slope approaching a thousand feet per mile.
July 17, 2024
Having learned where to park last week, I headed straight to the Vail Village parking structure. That’s co-located at the Vail Transportation Center, so I just had to climb a flight of stairs to get to the shuttle bus. My failure this time was not doing any reconnaissance at the trailhead. The shuttle bus drops hikers off at a stop about a quarter of a mile from the trailhead, so I added half a mile to the round-trip distance. And, naturally, you might guess that when I got to the trailhead at 8:30 I found that there was plenty of parking available. Note to self: when hiking from this trailhead on a weekday, check the availability of parking before resorting to the shuttle.
I started off at a very slow pace. I wanted to set a pace that I could maintain over the long haul. I was promptly passed by two women, then by three trail maintenance volunteers. Even in the middle not-cruelly-steep section, I didn’t speed up. And I was slow up the final lift. It wasn’t record-slow territory (I was slower going up the Manitou Incline), I averaged only a bit more than a mile an hour: trailhead to lake in four hours (3:59, to be precise).
I was at about the top of the first climb when I met the trail volunteers again. They were clearing deadfall off the trail. I chatted briefly with them; they clearly didn’t want to be distracted from their work. After passing them, I should have kept track of how many dead tree trunks were blocking the trail. It was in the neighborhood of a dozen. When I got to what turned out to be the last one, I couldn’t help but wonder how they’d deal with it. It was a giant trunk.
There were very few people on the trail. No faster hikers passed me on my way up, and I didn’t encounter anybody coming the other way until the last mile. I spent forty-five minutes at the lake in solitude.
My next meeting with the trail crew was at the large trunk. I could hear them before I saw them: the “thok thok thok” of wedges being hammered into wood. When I got there, they had managed to cut nearly through the 31″ trunk. I arrived unnoticed and eavesdropped for a minute. When they spotted me, they directed me around their work and onto the trail below. I turned to look up at them and immediately moved on: when they completed the cut, a large length of this trunk would roll down the trail to where I was standing.
Not long after, they passed me on their way back to the trailhead. The leader was now feeling chatty. “We cleared all the deadfall!” I told him I was impressed with how much work they’d done. I didn’t think they’d get that far, and I was impressed that they had a (relatively) easy answer to the big obstruction. He then told me his plans for the next week: clearing more trails just like they did today, starting at another giant log blocking another trail in the ENW, 5.9 miles from the trailhead.
Big thanks to the volunteers with the Eagle Summit Wilderness Alliance for maintaining the trail.
Looking Up Gore Valley
Deluge Lake
Today’s Beer
Deluge Lake
Collapsing Snowbank
Mount of the Holy Cross (19 miles distant)
I was expecting to be a bit faster on the hike out than my rather glacial pace of the morning. I’ve never been that much faster going out/down than in/up, but given the steepness of this one, I figured there’d be no way it would take as long. I was right. It took me six minutes less to hike back. Okay, there was a short break to refill my water bottle, and a couple of minutes chatting with the crew. Still, surprisingly slow.
Booth Lake lies 11,468′ above sea level at the head of a scenic alpine valley just a bit over five miles as the crow flies northeast of downtown Vail.
There is no parking anywhere near the trailhead. You either have to have somebody drop you off and pick you up later, or take the shuttle bus. The first bus leaves the Vail Transportation Center at 8:00 am. I somehow misread the bus schedule and thought the last bus would stop here before 5:00 pm but the driver told me they run until about midnight. I generally like to start hiking more like 7 than 8, but with busses running until well after dark, the late-ish start isn’t an issue.
Being a non-skier, I’ve never spent any time in Vail. One website says to park either in the Lionshead parking structure or at Vail Village. I made the poor assumption that the choices were listed in order of preference. Sadly, it was probably just in alphabetical order. Next time I need to use the shuttle, I’ll park in Vail Village and save myself some time. If you park at Lionshead, you’ll need to take a different shuttle from there to the Vail Transportation Center where the shuttle to the trailheads starts.
The trailhead is a quarter of a mile from the bus stop, up a paved residential street.
The trail climbs about 3000′ over the 4.4 miles or so of trail. That’s pretty steep. It takes about 1.2 miles to climb the first thousand feet, 1.5 miles for the next thousand, and 1.7 for the final thousand-foot lift. This might lead one to think the hiking mellows out slightly as you go, but each of the three sections has at least one grueling climb. On a typical trail, if there is such a thing, I can generally maintain a two-mile-an-hour pace or thereabouts. On this trail, I wasn’t nearly so fast averaging only 1.25mph.
It was a calm, cloudless day. The forecast high in Denver was 101. I expected the low 80s here.
Hiking in the wilderness, be it Indian Peaks, James Peak, Eagles Nest, or even RMNP, one might say there are two types of hikes: through the forest or across the tundra. Booth Lake is below the tree line, so this would be a forest hike. That’s true, except that the valley is filled with a scattering of trees rather than a forest. The trail is predominantly in the sunlight. This would be quite welcome in September or even October. It was not so much welcome on one of the hottest days of the summer. I don’t mean to complain. The weather was gorgeous. I just think I’d have had an easier time if I had had more shade.
It took me an hour and a quarter to get to Booth Falls. I didn’t even pause there to take in the view. I was focused on moving uphill. I could take a break here on the way back.
The great thing about hiking across grassy slopes is the open views.
Valley view from just below the lake
Red Columbine
Booth Lake, looking west
Today’s Beer
Booth Lake, looking southeast
I reached the lake in a bit over three and a half hours. That was a bit longer than I had guessed, but I wasn’t in any hurry. I encountered only two other hikers until I was within a mile or so of the lake. A group passed me going up and two or three pairs of hikers on their way down. I spent an hour at the lake and there were never more than six people there. Very quiet.
Considering the trail parallels Booth Creek, there are surprisingly few places to get water. It is only alongside the creek for a short way and is seldom convenient. In the mile below the lake, though, there are a few nice streams and I took advantage and refilled my water bottle on the way down. I looked upslope from my refill spot and saw the snowbank it was coming from. I took my ice-cold water not more than a hundred yards from its source!
At the lake, two gals asked me if I was the guy who’d seen goats. I was not. After refilling my water bottle, I met a woman who decided not to go any further. She was so close. She told me she’d been to the lake several times before and was too pooped today to continue up. She said she saw a couple of goats and pointed out the route they’d taken. I kept scanning the valley wall but never did spot them. It won’t be the last time other hikers see animals that evade me.
I’ll get to Mt. Ida in a moment, but first I’ll mention that I made a trip to one of my happy places: Black Lake. I’ve been there a couple of dozen times, so there’s not much point in going into any details. It was a sort of last-minute decision, insofar as a trip to the Bear Lake corridor in RMNP can be last-minute. I picked up a pass to get me in between 8 and 10 and arrived a few minutes after 8. The line at the entrance station was quite long.
My plan was to perhaps make it to Blue Lake, but I figured that might be a bit on the aspirational side, being that it was still June (the 28th, actually). I encountered a number of people who said they were headed to Black Lake, but I never saw any of them again. There wasn’t a huge amount of snow, but clearly enough to discourage many people.
I went a short way above Black Lake and found a nice picnic spot. Being that I got a bit of a late start and there was a little more snow than I was expecting, I didn’t really try to go any farther. As I had my picnic, a number of hikers came down from above. I chatted with two pairs of hikers who had wanted to get to Frozen Lake but were stymied by the first water crossing. Another pair of hikers told me they’d failed to reach Green Lake.
Friday, July 5
The idea to finally summit Mt. Ida wasn’t exactly last-minute, but it was poorly planned. By that, I mainly mean to say that I was oblivious to the fact that the Park would be about as crowded as any day on the calendar.
I arrived at the entrance station at 7. Well, let’s say I made it to the Beaver Meadows visitor center at 7. It took another 15 minutes to get to the entrance station. When the day dawned I was thinking that I’d have a nice uncrowded run over Trail Ridge Road. Hah! Silly me.
Now that reality has set in, I was starting to think about a Plan B. There isn’t much parking at the Milner Pass trailhead and I doubted I’d be able to get a parking spot. This concern was well-founded. When I got there, the lot was full. I needed a comfort stop, and so I parked illegally to use the restroom. Luckily, no Plan B was necessary, as somebody was leaving by the time I returned to my car.
I put boots on the trail at 8:17. This is my fourth hike up the Mt. Ida trail, none of the previous three with the intention of reaching the summit. They were all about reaching the various Gorge Lakes. There are three I haven’t been to: Inkwell, Azure, and Highest. I’ve proved that they’re out of my reach from below. Foster has a couple of routes to those three from above. It’s probably too steep for me, but I won’t know until I put eyes on the terrain. So off to the summit I finally go.
I seem to have weather issues whenever I’m hiking around Mt. Ida. My first visit to Arrowhead was the day it started raining in the 2013 floods. On my backpacking trip, we got rained on for more than a day. I got rained on, too, when I made it to Julian Lake. Today, the sky is a vivid blue with some small fluffy clouds. Yay!
The morning was chilly. I started in shirtsleeves, a bit cool, but expecting to keep warm through exertion. This worked until about fifteen minutes after I got above treeline. The wind was not fierce, but brisk. I put on my jacket.
I passed about as many hikers as passed me and didn’t encounter any people on their way down until I was maybe half an hour from the summit. One of the online guides says this hike is one of the most popular in the Park. There’s not enough parking to support that idea, but it is a popular hike. I was on the summit for about an hour. People came and went, but there were always eight or ten on top.
It took me three hours to reach the top. It took me about three seconds to decide there was no way I’d get to any of the Gorge Lakes from up here.
Azure Lake, Inkwell Lake
Highest Lake, maybe, and Longs Peak
“Got any food?”
Julian Lake
There were fat marmots everywhere. Twice they didn’t move off the trail until I was within a step of them. At the top, they were so used to people that they’d come right up to us, sniffing our bags. Brazen. I saw a few pikas, always carrying grass or flowers in their mouths, but couldn’t get a photo. They don’t stand still. On the summit, one ran almost between the feet of a guy I was talking to.
There’s a fairly long stretch of trail that weirds me out. I swear, it’s uphill in both directions. It’s not, of course, but it sure seems that way to me. Looking at the map, I see it runs within a few feet of 12,000 for a long stretch. Hiking up, even though you’re not climbing, you’re going up to that summit up there, so it looks like this level stretch is uphill. I don’t have a great explanation as to why it looks like it’s climbing on the way down.
On the way back, it wasn’t me asking people questions, it was people asking me. One guy wanted me to point out the summit for him. I thought the answer was fairly obvious, being the highest thing around, but didn’t give a snarky answer. Nearly back to treeline, another guy stopped me to ask how far it was to the top. I told him it took me three hours from the car; he said, “Two hours from here, then?” He looked disappointed. I suggested he go a bit farther up the trail and then find a nice spot to enjoy the view for a few minutes.
Two and a half hours from the summit back to the car. About half an hour from the car, when I took my jacket off, I realized I had neglected to slather on any SPF. Oops. I had the jacket on nearly the entire time, with the hood up for quite a bit of it, so hopefully my face wouldn’t be too badly burned. I only used my trek poles near the summit, and when I had the poles stowed, I often had my hands in my pockets.
Back at the car, I applied the sunscreen, better late than never, and took the top off the car for the drive home. Even if the traffic is horrible, I can enjoy the ideal weather for a drive in a convertible.
Trail Ridge Road and US 36 weren’t as bad as I was expecting. Traffic on 36 moved at nearly the speed limit. And I was pleasantly surprised that, instead of Friday rush hour congestion, traffic was very light from Boulder to home.
This little hike punches above its weight. The first part of the trail is alongside I-70. Wheeler Lakes are small forest lakes nowhere near any dramatic peaks. But once you get away from the road noise, it’s a pleasant little hike.
Coming from Denver, I parked at the “Scenic Area” just short of the junction with CO 91. It’s more like a chain station for the big rigs that has parking for a trail. If you’re coming from the west or south, you can park at Copper Mountain and walk over the overpass.
The traffic noise is somewhere between tolerable and annoying. It doesn’t let up, but it varies. It’s engine noise and tire noise and wind noise. When it’s just cars, you can hear the tires slapping rhythmically on the expansion strips. Motorcycles add a bit of trombone. Every now and then you hear the belch of a Jake brake. The trail here is flat and nearly level, so you can set a quick pace.
As you gain elevation, the highway noise starts to soften. When the trail crosses a little stream, the road noise is finally covered by the babbling brook. The trail moves primarily through thin forest and passes by several grassy marshes and grassy hillsides, granting more open views. The trail climbs incessantly, but never steeply. There’s a large aspen grove that would be quite nice in the fall.
Upper Wheeler Lake
Lower Wheeler Lake
Today’s beer
Lower Wheeler Lake
Clouds of tree pollen
I hiked at a leisurely pace and took a short break for a protein bar and still made it to the farthest lake in two hours.
Counterintuitively, the first lake you reach is the upper lake. The trail crosses a broad saddle and descends a few feet before reaching the upper lake. Continuing on another couple of hundred yards and dropping a few feet you reach the lower lake.
The lakes are quite pleasant. They’re quite open; not entirely surrounded by forest. This is very much in line with the character of the hike. The trail passed across or along several grassy slopes and marshy meadows, giving numerous open views.
I’m always going on about how much better food tastes when I hike to an alpine lake. Today’s beer was a strawberry-rhubarb sour ale. This is the fourth one I’ve had. Drinking the first three, I never really tasted the rhubarb. As a kid, I didn’t like strawberry rhubarb pie, even though I loved strawberries. I haven’t tried it since I was about 10. My palate has changed considerably since then, thankfully. Anyway, today I could taste the rhubarb in the beer. It’s from the same six-pack, so it’s not like it’s a different batch. But I drank this one at an alpine lake, where my sense of taste seems so much enhanced.
The Drive
I’m in the habit of getting to the trailhead perhaps a bit earlier than I would like to. I’m always worried about getting a parking spot. On this hike, though, I figured parking wouldn’t be a problem. I woke up early nonetheless. Why not drive over Loveland Pass instead of going through the Eisenhower Tunnel? It doesn’t add much time, and it’s much more scenic. So I did.
I mounted two cameras, one on the nose and one on the tail. I very nearly got a clean run, encountering only two cars going in my direction. I caught the second one and was looking for a place to pass when I saw a pretty big rock in the middle of our lane. I moved way to the left, but the Charger ran right over it. Shards from the rock showered my car. He didn’t appear to be leaking any oil or coolant, but he pulled over not long after.
Just after I passed him, I rounded a hairpin and came face to face with a herd of bighorn sheep. On the trail, carrying my DSLR, I’m constantly getting asked if I’ve seen any wildlife. Here on the road is the only wildlife I saw for the day.
I’ve hiked to Forest Lakes this time of year a couple of times before. I always have the ambition to make it to the upper lake, but there’s a lot of snow and I call it quits at the lower lake. This time, I told myself, I’d make it to the upper lake.
I got to the parking lot at 8:10. Less than a dozen cars were there, and one of them was headed out, his morning run done. I chatted briefly with a couple of backpackers that I passed just before we got to the Wilderness boundary. They were headed to Rogers Pass Lake and Hart Lake. “Maybe even the Divide” he said. I didn’t tell them they’d be unlikely to find anywhere without snow within a mile of any lake. I didn’t want to spoil their adventure.
The first challenge of the day was the bridge over Arapaho Creek. I’ve only been here a handful of times, but the water was much higher than I’d ever seen it. Water was flowing over six or eight feet of trail on each side of the bridge. It’s not quite ankle-deep, but the rocks are slippery and maybe not securely placed. The middle of the bridge is drenched, so you know you’ll get a quick, cold shower. I started to wonder how much higher the water might be after five hours of warm sunshine.
Not long after crossing the bridge, we get to the snow. It’s piled up in widely spaced drifts. Soon the drifts aren’t widely spaced and there is much less bare ground. The drifts are mushy around the edges but firm on top and I don’t need to use the microspikes.
I lost the trail pretty quickly, more or less as I expected. I saw an occasional old bootprint but nothing like any sign of foot traffic. I’m left to my own devices.
I eventually came to a half-broken bridge over a stream. I crossed it but immediately had second thoughts. I thought that by crossing the stream, I’d be heading to Arapaho Lakes, and I didn’t want to go that way. So after a short while, I recrossed the stream and climbed alongside it, expecting it to take me to the lower lake.
I made it to a lake, alright, but it wasn’t the lower lake. The lower lake has a mountain view and some large sun-lit rocks that make a nice place to picnic. This lake has no view to speak of and no picnic rocks. I was at the larger of the two unnamed ponds a quarter mile or so east of lower Forest Lake.
I can see why it’s unnamed. It is an unremarkable snow-fed forest lake. I stayed for about an hour. I did manage to find a picnic spot. It was quite pleasant. The weather was fine, sunny, calm. I enjoyed the route-finding, even with the navigational error. I was able to walk mostly on firm snow. I had my micro-spikes with me but didn’t use them. Traction wasn’t a problem, and I did a pretty good job of avoiding post-holing.
Snow drifts on the marsh
Little Serendipity Pond
Picnic (not much of a) view
Today’s beer
I was operating under the assumption that I’d get to the lower lake. Once there, I was sure I could find the tracks of all the folks who come up here. Being in the wrong place, I turn to Plan B: retrace my footsteps. Above the Arapaho Creek bridge, I hiked mostly on snow. Mostly. So it should be pretty easy, right?
Around the pond, I crossed a couple of wide marshes. Both times, scanning the far side of the marsh, I couldn’t see any of my tracks. I took what looked to be the most obvious route and got it right both times.
The sun was doing a job on my footprints, and in the shade, it wasn’t much easier. But I was able to follow my tracks for a good while. It was a more challenging task than I thought it would be. Coming across the occasional deer and elk tracks added some misdirection. Aside from crossing the stream on a different snow bridge, I was able to retrace my route with very little variation. It was a fun exercise. (It did not matter whether I could retrace my steps or not. All I needed to do to get back to the bridge was to follow the water.)
Since the couple I met just outside the boundary, I didn’t see another hiker all day until I made it back to the Arapaho Creek bridge where I passed a guy who was on his way up. Usually, I have to hike a lot farther to get that much solitude.
The pond has no name, but that won’t stop me from calling it Little Serendipity Pond. Not that the pond is little, because it’s not. It’s the level of serendipity that is little. I was happy to visit a lake I hadn’t been to before. I don’t know that I’ll ever go back, but it was an easy hike, it provides solitude, and there are far worse places to spend a pleasant day.
Two lakes sit due south of Mount Neva, a few yards east of the Continental Divide, at nearly 12,000′ above sea level. I’ve been wanting to hike there for a few weeks but couldn’t fit it into the schedule. It’s getting late enough in the season that if I don’t do it now, I won’t do it this year.
I talked Chad into going with me. The last time I took him off trail, we traversed a steep forested hillside that made him quite uncomfortable. And early in that hike, he tweaked his ankle a bit. He didn’t have a great time.
So I was pleasantly surprised he agreed to go on a hike I described as sunny but cold, with winds that might drive us from the lakes within minutes, and to get there, we’d have two hours off the trail over a route that ProTrails describes as marshy with a steep wall at the end.
We left my place at seven. I figured the trailhead wouldn’t be as busy as it is in August. It was a calculated risk, and I had no Plan B. Generally I reach the high school before the rangers are staffing their station. Today we arrived just as the ranger put out the “FULL” sign for the Fourth of July trailhead.
He told us that there may still be parking available there. The ranger up at the trailhead was now on her way down with a count of available parking. We were directed to park next to an orange cone in the school parking lot, first in line for any empty spots. We waited maybe fifteen minutes before being told to head on up. Next in line behind us was a big Audi sedan. It’s a rough road with lots of holes and exposed rocks. Three or four cars later was a BMW sedan. That those guys got those cars up there indicates you can drive damn near anything up there if you’re so inclined.
Before shutting off the car, I checked the temperature: 28 degrees F.
To reach the lakes, we headed up the Arapaho Pass trail to the derelict mine and the junction with the trail that climbs the flank of South Arapaho Peak. It’s a two-mile hike from the trailhead, rising about 1100′ at a fairly constant grade. It took us an hour. From the trail junction, we’d descend a couple hundred feet to the floor of the valley. Chad was glad to be done with the relentless trail.
We’re pretty much right at treeline when we leave the trail. The trees are in clumps, fairly easy to skirt. Any flat spaces between the trees and along the stream are normally boggy and marshy, but this late in the season, everything is dry. Well, almost everything. We do come across a few bogs, but it’ll never be any drier than it is today. We followed a number of game trails that appeared and faded out at the edge of a dry marsh or a small talus field. Regardless, navigation is as easy as it gets with these expansive views.
For about a mile above our stream crossing, we gain only about three hundred feet. It’s a pleasant, leisurely stroll. The sun is shining brightly in a deep cobalt sky with a gentle breeze. It has snowed here, lightly, a couple of times over the last several days. A thin dusting of snow clings to the high, steep, shady, northern mountainside. Where we’re walking, there are occasional spots of snow in the shade of a bush or rock. One pool we passed had a very thin sheet of ice on it. It was nearly invisible. I gently pushed on it. Not hard enough to crack it, but I did make some water rise through a few silver dollar-sized holes at the other end of the ice. Pretty cool.
Being off-trail, I expected not to see any other hikers. Just before we came to ProTrails’ “steep wall” below the lakes, we spotted three hikers with a dog working their way up the valley, still on the other side of the stream. They passed us pretty quickly, they were moving at a pretty good clip. We had a brief chat as to the best route. This was their first trip to these lakes, too. I said we were going to try to make use of any grassy ramps a bit to the left of the lakes to avoid the steep talus. This would take us to the upper lake first, putting us on its southeastern shore.
We arrived at the upper lake pretty much on schedule. We found a nice spot for our picnic not too close to the other hikers, whose dog ran over to greet us when we appeared. We had a nice view of Mount Neva. There was still not a cloud in the sky, and the winds were about as calm as one can expect beneath the Divide. I brought beers. I had a blood orange blonde, Chad had the lager.
After the other group left, Chad spotted a couple of hikers descending a ravine from the ridgeline between Mount Neva and Mount Jasper. There’s a route from Arapaho Pass that summits Neva and comes down here. Not long after those two guys, wearing shorts and lightweight shoes, disappeared down the outlet of the lake we saw two more hikers mid-descent. Too steep for me, I think.
The upper lake looks to already have drained two feet below its high-water mark, judging from the bathtub ring. The outlet is high and dry. A few yards below the lake, following the dry outlet we came to running water: the upper lake is draining from here. It’s a pretty strong flow. I’d guess it’s eight or ten feet of elevation below the surface of the lake. This drain is surrounded by tufts of grass. The water flows gently to a small pond that then drains into the lower lake. The lower lake is still full.
Leaving the lower lake at its outlet, we were at the top of a large, steep talus field. The grassy ramps we came up on are quite a ways to our right. We worked our way down diagonally, crossing more talus than is to my liking.
Mount Neva
Upper Neva Lake
Lower Lake viewed from Upper
Upper Neva Lake and Mount Neva
Lower Neva Lake
Navigation back across the valley and up to the trail is, again, dead simple. The trail we’re heading toward is a plainly visible slash across the mountain ahead of us. Again, we gained and lost social trails. A few times, I saw the footprints of the hikers with the lightweight footwear.
After crossing the stream, we needed to climb about two hundred feet to gain the trail. Getting near the end, I found a faint game trail. We followed it for a short while, but I decided I wanted to climb faster and took a more direct route. We stopped for a short break when we got to the trail. I figured we were between the mine and the junction. We discussed whether we wanted to head up to the mine or not. We decided not.
This was a good choice. It turns out we were above the mine and didn’t need to make a side trip to get there. Had we made the side trip, we’d have gone the wrong way.
When I was here before, I wanted to get a picture of the vertical mine shaft. There was no barrier around it. I’m smart enough to go nowhere near the slippery-looking edge, but I could imagine coming across it in the dark or in bad weather. Today I have my GoPro on a stick. Perhaps I could get a video looking down into the black hole.
It was not to be. They have somehow managed to fill the hole with dirt and rocks. I imagine they must have had to somehow put a plug in it and cover the plug with dirt. This was a pretty deep shaft and filling it up is out of the question. This trail gets quite a bit of traffic. I’m surprised they didn’t plug the shaft before now.
It was a great hike. We couldn’t have had better weather. The views were fantastic
This is my second trip up this valley. Back in early July, I came up here thinking I’d be able to get to the upper lake, but there was too much snow. Yes, it was silly of me to think I’d be able to hike above 11,000′ that early in the season. One nice thing about not getting to where I wanted to go is that it’s a built-in excuse to make another trip.
Friday, September 1
Rather than repeat myself, I’ll begin at Diamond Lake. (There is no shuttle to the trailhead, so I’ll note that on a Friday before a holiday weekend, there were still a few parking spots available at 7:30 am.)
There are more like four Diamond Lakes than two. In addition to Diamond Lake (10,960′) and Upper Diamond Lake (11,732′), there are two more. One is at 11,359′ and a much shallower one lies at 11,518′. I’m reasonably certain this second one never dries out, but it’s a close call.
When I’m hiking on a well-maintained trail, I generally don’t use trek poles. I carry them with me, strapped to my daypack. When I got to Diamond Lake, I broke out the poles only to get hit with glitch number one of the day. One of the nuts on the cams had come off. I couldn’t extend the pole to anything like a usable length. Oh well. No poles today. I hope that’s not going to be a problem.
To get to Upper Diamond Lake from Diamond Lake, continue to follow the trail that skirts the lake on its northern shore. I followed it all the way to the inlet stream. The trail climbs steeply for a while beside the burbling stream on a grassy slope. After a bit, I reached a T intersection. This surprised me a bit. On the hike back down, I didn’t even see this intersection and ended up at Diamond Lake a fair distance farther east than where I left the lake.
At one point, the trail seems to terminate right up against a giant rock. I saw that some hikers had gone around the rock to the right, so that’s what I did. Circling above the rock, I found the trail again. At the foot of the rock, there’s a “crack” there that is easily climbed. I just didn’t look closely enough.
Not long after this, we get to the southernmost of the lakes. The trail goes right down to the water. This is ideal if you’re ending your hike here, but not so ideal if you are continuing to the upper lake. This is more or less the end of the trail.
We’re above treeline by now, so the lack of a trail isn’t that big of a deal. From here on out, it’s fairly easy to see where you need to go, and there is enough hiking traffic that occasionally you come across some grass that’s clearly been walked through. I also spotted a cairn here and there, but these cairns are more of a confirmation that I’m going in the right direction than they signal a clear route.
The final approach to the upper lake is across a mix of narrow grassy slopes and boulders/talus. The lake is stark – a drop of water at the head of a narrow, rocky canyon. I didn’t stay there long. The wind, while not fierce, was steady.
It was only 10:30 (so, a bit less than a three-hour hike from the trailhead) and I wasn’t yet ready for lunch. I had a quick snack and headed back down, thinking I could find a scenic spot for lunch back at the lake where the trail ends. This was a much shorter stay at my destination than usual. It wasn’t that I was rushed for time, or that I didn’t find the lake very scenic. I just didn’t feel like sitting in the wind for very long, and, frankly, I enjoyed the hike between the lakes as much as I did the lake itself.
I took another break at the lower lake to slurp down a tasty Palisade peach.
I hadn’t seen another hiker since I first arrived at the lower lake. On the hike out, there was quite a bit of traffic on the trail. A short distance before reaching the junction with the Arapaho Pass trail, hikers told me to be on the lookout for a moose. I can’t tell you how often hikers tell me to be on the lookout for moose that I never see. This time, though, I spotted her. She was sitting comfortably in the shade only about twenty feet off the trail, chewing her cud.
Diamond Lake
Diamond Lake
Lake at 11,359′
They usually fly before I get the lens cap off
Late summer color
Lake at 11,5`8′
Upper Diamond Lake
Ptarmigan
She’s chewing her cud, counting the passing hikers
Oops
My second glitch of the day happened about ten minutes from the trailhead. I’m the first to admit I’m a bit of a clumsy oaf. Last week, I mentioned that I fell down four times. When I’m bushwhacking through dense forest, this doesn’t bother me much. It seems like tree limbs make a sport of grabbing my boots and pulling me off-balance. It goes with the territory.
On the trail, however, I expect to be able to keep on my feet. I don’t know what happened, but I took a mighty fall. I managed to break my fall with my hands, then sort of half-roll. I got a little bit of road rash on my left hand, which is annoying. But I landed on that hand pretty hard and it’s quite swollen and a bit discolored. I popped a couple of ibuprofen and continued back to the car. I have a couple of other bruises – my left upper arm just below the shoulder and my left leg, just above the knee.
This is the second time I’ve fallen on the trail. The first was about ten years ago. I scraped my arm pretty well and was covered in blood. I still carry about a six-inch scar from that one. Very little blood today. In addition to the sore, bruised, swollen left hand, I did a bit of damage to the GoPro. I carry it in the left front pocket of my pants. The selfie-stick/tripod it’s mounted on is a bit too long to fit in the pocket, so the camera sticks out. I landed right on top of the camera before my half-roll. No damage to the camera, but I did break the clear lens cap.
As long as I’ve been hiking to Spruce Lake, they’ve had notices prominently posted that the wetlands on the east side of the lake are closed. That includes the shallow part of the lake where I saw the male and female moose sniffing each other and the marshy area from there to the trail. This area is closed to protect the breeding habitat for the boreal toad, which is classified as endangered by the state of Colorado.
I’ve never once seen nor heard any toads around here. I had no idea any toads or frogs lived in this part of the world, it being a few hundred feet short of 10,000′ above sea level and pretty much frozen solid a few months every year.
Well, this trip I finally spotted one. It wasn’t anywhere near the closure, but on one of the few stretches of bushwhacking we did on our way up to Loomis Lake when we lost the trail. The little guy (or gal) hopped right in front of me. I snapped a couple of photos, but he didn’t stand still for his portrait and none of them turned out. Still, it’s not every day one gets to see an endangered species in the wild.
Back in August of 2019, I made an attempt to reach the four lakes at the head of Spruce Canyon: Hourglass Lake, Rainbow Lake, Lake Irene, and Sprague Tarn. I made it to only the first of those. It was a fairly miserable hike.
Last year, I visited Spruce Lake (which, curiously, is not in Spruce Canyon). The idea on that hike was to see more of the East Troublesome burn scar. Much of the trail passes through forest that was thoroughly burned. It seemed to me that a motivated hiker might be able to bushwhack up Spruce Canyon a lot easier now. I know the trees and deadfall don’t burn to ashes, but judging by much of what I saw, the underbrush should be pretty much gone, and with nothing but burned trunks standing, visibility for route-finding should be much improved.
So I decided to make a return trip.
Tuesday, August 22
Reckoning that it’s only a three-hour hike to the campsite at Spruce Lake, we decided on a relatively late start and lunch in Estes before setting out. We decided on Smokin’ Dave’s BBQ. There’s nothing like over-eating a bunch of barbecue before setting off on a hot day, carrying a 34 lb backpack. Probably not the best lunch choice.
It seems I’m always playing a mental game of “what did I forget” or “what will go wrong”. I don’t think I’m particularly pessimistic about things in general. I often forget things (in spite of constantly making checklists) and nothing ever goes perfectly. I always hope that if I forget something, it’ll be something that’s not mission-critical. And that if anything goes wrong, it’s something minor.
So let’s get this out of the way right off the bat. My checklists served their purpose and nothing was forgotten. But a couple of minor things did go wrong. When backpacking, I carry two water bottles and a Steri-Pen to purify more water. I only need two bottles in camp and on the hike in or out, only one of them is full. Getting out of Gordon’s truck, I managed to drop my full bottle, which pretty much shattered when it hit the ground. The second mishap is that the batteries in my Steri-Pen died after two uses. So, for pretty much the whole trip I was hounding Gordon to filter some more water for me.
The hike to Spruce Lake was uneventful. It took us just a few minutes less than the three hours I anticipated. There are two campsites at Spruce Lake. Neither was occupied when we arrived, and we took the one closer to the lake (and further from the privy). I’ve always been under the impression that the backcountry campsites get sold out for the year in the first few days of March. I was a bit surprised, then, that nobody ever camped at the other site. On our previous trip a few weeks ago, the second campsite went empty one night. That’s a 37% vacancy rate. Do that many people make reservations but never show up?
When I picked up the permit last month, I was warned that there was a curious moose in the area. And when we entered the park, the ranger said to watch out for the large moose at Spruce Lake. I couldn’t help but wonder, then, if we were to be on the lookout for a large curious moose, or a large moose and a curious one.
After setting up camp, we sat on the shore of the lake to relax. We immediately spotted a bull moose on the far shore. We heard a loud splash a few minutes later and saw a cow moose wading or swimming out into the lake. My first thought was that it was swimming, but it could be that where she crossed it wasn’t all that deep. She was making good progress. Gordon wondered aloud if we should be concerned that she was heading straight for us.
She got out of the water 20 or 30 feet from us, then circled around us to get back into the water more toward the outlet. Meanwhile, the bull was working his way toward the outlet area as well. In 2019, we saw a cow here with a calf. This might be the same cow, and the bull might be the calf. On the other hand, these could be different moose entirely. He was a bit smaller than she. I’m not up on my moose behavior: they’re solitary beasts, and not territorial, but do they tolerate one another?
Bullwinkle and … Cowwinkle?
Moonset over Gabletop Mountain
Greenback cutthroat trout
Loomis Lake
Spruce Lake and Castle Rock
Trailside doe eating breakfast
I went back to the camp to have dinner. Before long, the cow traipsed into camp. Not so much into camp as around it. She kept an eye on me as she made her orbit. Was she the curious moose we were warned about?
Wednesday, August 23
To get to the head of Spruce Canyon from Spruce Lake, the idea is to contour around Castle Rock, converging with Spruce Creek without losing any elevation. As I said earlier, I hoped the fire would allow for better route-finding and somewhat easier passage.
We were on the fringes of the burn scar, sometimes in badly burned areas, sometimes in a living forest. Visibility was somewhat better, but the bushwhacking was still grueling. Last time, we only managed half a mile an hour. I don’t think we were moving any faster today. We contoured around a fairly steep section. Where it was burned and steep, the footing was a bit treacherous. By the end of the morning, I’d fallen on my ass four times. Check that – it was three times on my ass, once on my face.
Each time I fell, I’d end up with my hands in the dirt. Each time, ash and soot and soil stuck to my sweating hands. The soil came off easily enough, but the soot and ash clung tenaciously to my fingernails.
Two hours into our expedition I could see ahead to where we were going and back to where we’d come from. I made the executive decision to abort the mission. I do these hikes to have fun. I was wrong that it would be easier this time. Soot stained my hands and pants and dealing with the deadfall was exhausting. I hauled out Plan B: hike to Loomis Lake after a lunch break back at Spruce Lake. Gordon didn’t seem too disappointed to turn around.
After lunch and a bit of moose-watching, we headed to Loomis Lake. I’ve been there twice before and I don’t recall it being particularly challenging. So I was surprised and disappointed that it was much more difficult than I recalled. As it turned out, on the way up to Loomis Lake, we lost the trail four times. starting right at Spruce Lake. Two other times we lost the trail going around deadfall that blocked the way. For a short while, I felt like I was back in Spruce Canyon.
About two-thirds of the way from Spruce Lake to Loomis Lake, you pass by a pond. There’s a big boulder that in the wettest time of the year is an island but is usually a peninsula. On that rock, clings a fairly good-sized tree. There is no soil, just a few cracks in the granite. That a tree of that size has managed to grow there for decades amazes me. The tenacity of life.
If you manage to follow the trail, it really isn’t a difficult hike. Unfortunately for me, every time I’ve been to Loomis, it’s been overcast. I still don’t have a decent picture of the place. It’s one of those “stark beauty” sorts of places, surrounded by imposing rock walls. The gray clouds and diffused light make it a bit gloomy. I’d like to see it in bright sunlight.
On the way down, we easily followed the trail. It started to sprinkle a bit, threatening rain. Usually, I have to put the raincoat on to make the rain stop; today all I had to do was tell Gordon I might need to stop to put on the coat. Once I said it, it pretty much stopped right away.
We were back to Spruce Lake and camp for dinner and more moose-watching. This evening, it was two bulls. They stayed on the opposite side of the lake, so I didn’t get a great look at them.
I climbed into the sack not long after dark. I’m generally up until well after 11, but I nodded off pretty quickly. At 9:30 it started raining. It really came down for a while, but moderated before long. I don’t know how long it lasted, but it was more than an hour. A good soaking. The tent’s rain cover did its job, keeping everything inside the tent and the little atrium dry.
Thursday, August 24
We awoke to mostly sunny skies – a pleasant morning.
The hike out was just under three hours. We came across a doe that insisted on grazing right next to the trail, not at all concerned about our presence.
My dad always used to say, “I was wrong once. I thought I made a mistake!”
That’s my story with Spruce Canyon. I thought I made a mistake saying I’d never make it to Rainbow Lake, Irene Lake, and Sprague Glacier, but I was wrong!
The other route to those destinations would be from Flattop. It’s not in my day-hike range from there, at well over 8 miles each way and a big climb. And I’ll not make the attempt via Spruce Canyon again, as I said after my first attempt.
So I’ve been twice unsuccessful in reaching three of the four points of interest in Spruce Canyon. I am not disappointed. Both times it was a bit miserable, but a miserable day in the forest is still a good day. I failed to reach my goal, but I’m okay with that. If you always reach your goals, you’re doing it wrong.
I’m a little bit ashamed to admit how much of my life is spent on autopilot. We all have a tendency to let ourselves get stuck in ruts: “I’m doing this because I’ve done this before and I’m used to it.” That sort of thing. I think a good portion of my choices of where to hike has been out of laziness. I continue to hike in Rocky Mountain National Park because I’m comfortable there. It’s close, I know my way around the Park, I have a first-rate guide, and so on. It only takes me an hour and a half or so to get to any east-side trailhead and about two hours for a west-side hike.
I started getting away from the Park when they instituted their timed entry pass system. I climbed out of my rut and looked around. The Indian Peaks Wilderness is close – just south of RMNP. And James Peak is adjacent to IPW. Again, trailheads for IPW and JPW are close and can be reached in about an hour and a half.
Climbing further from my rut, I finally realized just how many hiking trails I can reach in no more time than it takes to reach a west side trailhead in RMNP.
One of those trailheads is the Willowbrook trailhead in a residential area of Silverthorne. This trailhead can be used to reach Salmon Lake and Willow Lakes, in southeastern Eagles Nest Wilderness. These lakes are surrounded by the dramatic cliffs of a number of 13ers: Rain Peak, East Thorn, and Red Peak.
I don’t have a good guidebook for this area, so I’m doing my research online. I’ve been around the internet long enough to know that not everything I read there is true. I don’t generally think this is much of an issue when it comes to researching hikes, but it’s a good thing to keep in mind. For example, two resources I commonly use are AllTrails and ProTrails (those links go to their respective Salmon Lake route descriptions). AllTrails says it’s a 9.8-mile round trip to Salmon Lake but ProTrails says it’s 15.3. ProTrails would have us start at a different trailhead. I use CalTopo maps and the distances given there match AllTrails.
A couple of notes before we start. First, the parking lot here holds only about a dozen cars but there is a shuttle available. Arrive early or find the shuttle. Second, there is a large network of trails in the area and there is a series of trail junctions. For hikes where I’m not going off-trail, I don’t always carry a map. Bring a map for this one.
Thursday, August 17
I arrived at the trailhead a bit before 7:30. There were only a few cars in the parking lot, and I’m guessing those belong to backpackers who spent the night at one of the lakes. CalTopo shows trails starting at two points near the parking lot, perhaps a hundred feet apart. This is incorrect. There is only one trail from here. There’s a place to register for overnight stays in the Wilderness. There is no fee, and no registration is required for day hikes.
The trail starts in a residential area and passes through Summit County open space before reaching the Eagles Nest boundary about three-quarters of a mile. CalTopo shows four trail junctions before the boundary, but there are only two. The forest is sparse enough to allow views of Silverthorne and Dillon Reservoir and dam. Alongside the lower sections of trail, beetle-kill trees are stacked in pyramids ready for burning when there’s snow on the ground.
Shortly after entering the Wilderness, the trail meets the Gore Range Trail. For the next mile and a half, the trail passes through an interesting section of forest. At first, it reminded me of the area around Ouzel Falls about ten or fifteen years after the fire. All the big trees were dead, the living trees are no more than ten or twelve feet tall. With no big trees, the views open up.
Here, there are no signs of fire in the last century. Hiking up the trail I didn’t notice it, but on the way down you can see that all the dead trees are lined up in the same direction. Why are all the dead trees lined up so nicely?
This area was greatly affected by beetle kill quite a while ago. It was one of the first places I recall seeing beetle-kill forest. The beetles burrow into mature trees, all with trunks at least ten inches in diameter. So all the big trees die, but beetle-kill trees take a while to fall over. They go from reddish-brown to gray and finally get knocked over randomly by wind or snow over the years. And they’d fall over in all sorts of directions.
I think this area was hit by a microburst. Two or three or four minutes of very high winds. Even live trees can’t stand up to the force; this dead forest never had a chance. Any creature unfortunate to be in the area was unlikely to survive. The dead trees are so densely packed, that getting through this area without a trail would be impossible. You just can’t bushwhack through it, you’d have to detour. Truly impassable without a trail.
Because the deadfall was so dense, I couldn’t see too many stumps. But I don’t think there were as many stumps as trees. Most of the trunks looked to be snapped off at the roots.
The next trail junction is the Willow Lake trail. Here the trail starts climbing steadily and relentlessly. It’s not terribly steep, but it goes on and on at a constant rate. On the way down, even knowing how long it went on, I was surprised at how long it went on. Above the top of this grade, though, the trail mellows considerably, climbing no more than two hundred feet a mile (with one exception).
After the big climb, the trail traverses a steep valley wall and reaches the final trail junction of the hike: the Salmon Lake trail. My plan is to visit both Salmon Lake and Upper Willow Lake (and lay eyes on the other various Willow Lakes). By my reckoning, it’s 5.8 miles to Upper Willow Lake with a one-mile round-trip side trip to Salmon for a total of 12.6 miles and maybe 2,800 vertical feet.
I would do Upper Willow Lake first, and if I didn’t feel like doing Salmon it would be a good excuse to come back. Alternatively, it would make a good single-night backpacking trip.
Continuing toward Upper Willow Lake after the Salmon junction, the forest thins again, revealing the dramatic faces of the mountains and ridges containing the valley: the flank of Red Peak to the south, Capricorn, Gemini Twins, and Sagittarius to the west, and East Thorn to the north. The trail meanders along a stream and among and along four or five lakes and ponds before reaching its final destination.
I stayed at the upper lake for forty-five minutes. I had my picnic lunch first. Instead, I should have taken a bunch of pictures first. By the time I was done eating, the few puffy clouds of earlier had grown big and gray. So it goes. After lunch, I explored for a few minutes before heading back down.
Back at the junction, still feeling fresh, I headed up to Salmon Lake. This is the exception to the generally mellow nature of the trail above the big climb. Here we are on a section reminiscent of the big climb. It is mercifully shorter, but at first seems almost malicious: we have climbed a hundred feet or more above Salmon Lake.
Beetle-kill Pyramids
East Thorn
Grays and Torreys, 20 miles distant
Willow Lakes (11,248′)
Willow Lakes (11,355′)
Upper Willow Lake
Upper Willow Lake and Zodiac Ridge
Dillon Lake
Salmon Lake
Salmon Lake
Salmon Lake, I think, is not as scenic as Upper Willow Lake. True, that’s not a low bar. The trail skirts north of the lake, avoiding a giant boulder field, dumping the hiker at the willow-choked western end. Half, or more, of the shore is talus.
By counting the number of hikers I encountered all day, I doubt the parking lot ever filled up. There were only two cars there in addition to mine when I got back to the trailhead. I didn’t meet more than a dozen hikers and backpackers.
On the hike out, I got sprinkled on a bit, just enough for me to put the raincoat on. There was a thunderstorm across the valley to the east, the thunder distinct but not nearby. I got a big dose of the solitude I enjoy. Not a bad way to spend the day.
Due to the generally sparse forest for much of the hike, the views are above average. There’s only one section of trail I found difficult. It’s certainly worthy of a return visit.
Timetable
Not an out-and-back, this hike was a Y. The stem is the base of the Y.
This is my first hike in Eagles Nest Wilderness and the Gore range. The Gore range towers above the western side of Colorado Highway 9 between Dillon Reservoir and Green Mountain Reservoir. Vail is nearly due west from Dillon, but I-70 travels nearly twice the distance to get there, heading southwest to Copper Mountain before turning northwest towards Vail to go around the southern end of the Gore range. Pitkin Lake is reached from the western boundary of Eagles Nest Wilderness near East Vail.
Pitkin Lake is situated at 11,351′ above sea level immediately south of the ridge that connects East Partner Peak and West Partner Peak (both above 13,000′) and immediately east of the ridge that connects West Partner Peak and Outpost Peak. To the east of the lake are the rugged peaks of Mount Solitude and Climbers Point.
To reach Pitkin Lake, take exit 180 from I-70 and head east on Fall Line Drive to the parking lot at the end of the road. It holds only about a dozen cars. An alternative to parking there is to take the shuttle bus from Vail which serves both the Pitkin Lake trailhead and the Booth Lake trailhead.
Pitkin Lake and Pitkin Creek are presumably both named for Frederick Pitkin, who was the second governor of Colorado. When searching for places named for Frederick Pitkin, I find a town, a county, and several streets in various Colorado cities and towns but this lake and creek are not mentioned. It seems a six-block-long street in Saguache is more notable than this lake and creek. I disagree.
When researching this hike, I found that ProTrails lists the distance as 8.9 miles round trip and AllTrails has it at 9.6 miles. I find that a non-trivial distance. After hiking it, I can’t help but wonder if it might even clock in at 10 miles. In any case, the trailhead is at about 8,425′ and the lake is at 11,351′ for a net elevation gain of about 2,925′.
Saturday, August 12
When I planned this hike, I didn’t know there was a shuttle bus that served this trailhead, so, of course, my parking paranoia was in high gear. I was happy to learn, then, that my son wanted to ride his downhill bike at Vail so I asked if I could get him to drop me off at the trailhead and pick me up when he was done biking. He agreed. He deposited me at the trailhead at 9:20 and said he’d be able to pick me up at 5:30 or 5:45. This seemed like an ideal plan. It should only take me about six hours to make the hike, giving me two or two and a half hours of free time. I would have a leisurely day!
Given that the trail climbs about three thousand feet in four and a half or five miles, I’d say this trail is, overall, a fairly steep trail. It’s not uniformly steep, of course. There are three or four stretches I’d call “steep”, connected by mellower sections of trail. The steepest of the steep sections is the first half mile of the trail, climbing six hundred feet above I-70 to where the roar of the highway can no longer be heard.
The trail passes through mixed forests of pine and spruce, wide grassy meadows, and groves of aspen. The meadows are filled with a rainbow of wildflowers and the buzzing of bees. The meadows provide open views of the surrounding terrain. The forest sections are seldom very dense, with forest floors carpeted with lush greenery. The trail is generally quite narrow and in some places passes through foliage that is shoulder-high.
I started my hike at almost the same time as a couple with a black dog. We passed each other three or four times over the first half of the hike. Each time we’d pass, the dog would bark and growl at me. We exchanged a few words each time we passed. Once, they said they weren’t liking the looks of the sky. On the drive up, Michael and I mentioned it too: it was mostly overcast. We hoped it would clear up as the day progressed.
On my last passing the couple and dog, it had just started raining. I said, “Time to put the raincoat on!” Their response was, “We’re turning around!” I continued up the trail, the rain increasing in intensity. It wasn’t long before the crack of thunder shook creation. I didn’t see the lightning, but it was clearly in my immediate vicinity.
Given the extent of the cloud cover, I had no sense that this squall would be short-lived. It could rain all day for all I knew. I’d been hiking a bit over two hours, so it would take me two hours or so to get back to the trailhead. If Michael was getting rained on, I didn’t know if he’d be wanting to call it quits or not. After a few more thunderbolts I decided to turn back.
This seemed like the correct choice. It was raining so hard, the trail was often a river. My hiking pants aren’t waterproof and although my raincoat kept my torso, arms, and head dry, I was soaked below the waist. Under the partial cover of a tree, I checked the phone. I had service! I texted Michael and gave him a situation report. He told me it wasn’t raining where he was. Trying to send a couple of text messages, I discovered how poorly phones work in the rain: I couldn’t unlock the phone with my fingerprint, and the touchscreen doesn’t handle water very well. The phone also helpfully informed me that “water or debris is in the USB port”.
After backtracking for about half an hour, and losing significant elevation, the rain lightened and finally stopped. I was in a large meadow that had a nice view to the south. I decided to have my picnic lunch here, sitting on a wet rock in a wet meadow. While I was there, I was passed by a number of hikers making their way down the trail. Some turned around before reaching the lake, others said they’d turned around within minutes of getting there.
While I ate, I pondered my situation. It had stopped raining but was still overcast. Would the rain return? Two hikers I chatted with told me about the shuttle. If I went back to the trailhead, I could take the shuttle into town and Michael’s day would be unaffected by mine. On the other hand, I was already halfway to the lake. Should I turn around again in an attempt to reach it?
I decided to try for the lake. I reckoned it would take me three hours to get from the lake back to the trailhead. If Michael was going to be there at 5:30, that meant I could leave the lake as late as 2:30. It was about 12:45. By 1:15 I was back to where I originally gave up. Surely I would be able to reach the lake in another hour.
By a bit after 1:30, I was catching up to a couple who had passed me when I was having my lunch. He was leading the way; she was slower. He’d stop and wait until she caught up to him, then start again, not giving her any breaks. I was just marginally faster than she was and it took me quite a while before I passed them. Along the way, I’d hear her asking him variations of “Are we there yet?” His answer was always a variation of “It won’t be long now.”
When I finally did pass them, at about 2:10, I asked him if he thought we’d reach the lake by 2:30, as that was when I figured I’d have to turn around. “Oh, yeah. It’s not more than 10 minutes away.” I think he had no real idea how much longer it would take and the “10 more minutes” was to reassure her. I’m not sure it worked.
I arrived at the lake at 2:29. Aargh! Time to go already. It had begun sprinkling again in the last few minutes before getting to the lake. I didn’t have time to take even a short break. I was heading back down the trail after staying there only nine minutes. The couple arrived just as I was leaving. It took them half an hour to hike the stretch he said it’d only take ten minutes to do.
Trailside Foliage
Nice spot for a picnic
Waterfall #1
Waterfall #2
Pitkin Lake pano
Lowering Skies #1
Lowering Skies #2
A few minutes below the lake, I was passed by two hikers I’d briefly chatted with when I was eating my lunch. When I first met them, I told them that I’d given up due to the thunderstorm. Passing me leaving the lake, they recognized me. “Glad you decided to make it to the lake after all!” I didn’t tell them how short a time I was actually there.
On the hike out, the sprinkling turned into full-on rain. It rained for a bit more than the first hour of my hike down. It wasn’t raining hard enough to turn the trail into a river, but it did make many of the water crossings more entertaining. The rain came and went, sometimes going away long enough for my pants to dry again. Then, I’d get to one of those narrow spots where the trail passed through shoulder-high vegetation and I’d get soaked again from all the water on the leaves.
When I returned to my earlier picnic location, I’d been hiking non-stop for about four hours. Okay, technically I stood still for about 30 seconds to take pictures. I stopped here for a short break and ate my peach. I don’t know what it is about eating a peach on a hike, but they always seem to taste so much better on the trail than in my house.
Michael texted me about this time asking for my ETA to the trailhead. I made a guess, but I wasn’t very confident about it. By now, the lifts had ceased operating and he had a little time to kill. I tried to pick up my pace.
Then I came across the nude guy. At first, I thought I was imagining. Did I really see a nude guy cross the trail ahead of me? A few yards later, there he was. Standing on the side of the trail, clutching his undershorts in both hands in front of him, covering his privates. Out of self-defense, I kept eye contact with him until I passed him. In spite of his nudity, he attempted conversation: “Did you get caught by the rain?” Normally, I’d stop and chat; tell him my story of the thunderstorm and my turning around, then being rained on for an hour on the hike out. Now, though? I answered him, “Sure did,” without slowing down.
A few minutes later, I-70 came into sight. I stopped to text Michael that I’d be at the trailhead in 15 minutes or so. Before I could get the phone out of my pocket, nude guy was right behind me. He wasn’t nude anymore, but I thought it was a bit creepy that he followed me so closely. I’d love to know what nude guy’s story was, but there was no way I was going to ask him.
I ended up back at the trailhead on the original schedule – between 5:30 and 5:45. Along the way, I managed to convert a hike with plenty of spare time into one where I had to hustle to be on schedule and changed a 9 or 10-mile hike into more like 12 or 13 miles. Oh well.
I really like this trail. I bet it’s beautiful when the aspen are turning. Heck, I’m sure it’s beautiful anytime it’s not raining! I wouldn’t rule out a return to this lake.
