Lost Lake

Thursday, June 29

Aside from a short walk one day on my Atlanta trip back in April, I haven’t been hiking yet this year. It’s past time to rectify this.

Back in the depths of winter, I did a bit of map study and came up with a list of ten day hikes I might possibly make this year. Most of the hikes on this list are in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. One of them is Skyscraper Reservoir, which is reached via the Woodland Lake trail from the Hessie Trailhead.

Much of the lower part of the route is along the South Fork of Middle Boulder Creek. To get to the Woodland Lake trail, one must head north from this stream. On the map, there appear to be two options. The first is the trail I took last summer to reach Jasper Lake and Devils Thumb Lake. This trail runs parallel to another trail that connects the King Lake trail and the Woodland Lake trail. The two trails run on opposite sides of what I assume is Jasper Creek. The trails are never more than about a thousand feet apart, but neither trail is visible from the other. As I’ve already hiked the eastern one of these, I elected to take the western one.

This turned out to be a sound choice. There’s a spur trail connecting the two about a mile from Middle Boulder Creek. I assumed there’d be a bridge here to cross the creek. It doesn’t look like there ever was a bridge here. Many of the trails began as wagon tracks, and this crossing is simply a ford. Given the amount of snowpack the Indian Peaks received this year and the continued wet weather, the North Fork of Boulder Creek is flowing high and mighty. I’d probably be okay wading across it in August or September, but not today.

Part of the mile of trail between Middle Boulder Creek and the Woodland Lake trail can be challenging to follow. The trail gets a bit braided. It’s surprisingly easy to get off what should be the main trail onto something more like a game trail. I managed to do this hiking in both directions. It was more obvious on the way out. At one point, I knew I was on a trail I hadn’t been on earlier. I backtracked a bit but never did find where I went wrong.

Only about a quarter of a mile after the ford where the spur from the Jasper Lake trail, there’s a bridge that crosses the stream the trail is now following. To be more correct, the trail crosses the stream but the bridge is gone. Well, not “gone” so much as broken into pieces and lying in the middle of a raging torrent. It looks to me like this bridge has been out for a while, but I could be mistaken.

Again, given the flow of water, I wasn’t about to attempt a crossing. Clearly, I wouldn’t be reaching either Woodland Lake or Skyscraper Reservoir today. When I set out, I figured I might have time on the hike out to make a side trip to Lost Lake. Instead of a side trip, Lost Lake got promoted to today’s destination.

It’s only about a quarter of a mile from the main trail, up the spur to Lost Lake. The last few yards are the steepest. By the time I reached this steeper part, I’d already hiked about two and a half miles farther than anybody else here. I was powering my way up, huffing and puffing and sweating, when a downhill hiker felt the need to encourage me: “You’re already there!”

Lost Lake is a kidney-shaped body of water covering a bit less than five acres on the northern flank of Bryan Mountain, a non-descript peak topping out at less than 11,000′. There are nine campsites situated around the lake, and a trail (along with a network of social trails) circumnavigates the lake. The best view, in my opinion, is found on the eastern shore, looking a bit west of due north.

The trail guide says Lost Lake is a 2.7-mile round trip. I’m not sure if that’s the correct distance or not. If it’s measured from the trailhead, the hike is another half a mile each way. I’ve only ever seen one or two vehicles actually make it to the trailhead due to the deep water on the road that services it. Everybody else just parks along the main road. In any event, Lost Lake is the shortest hike from the Hessie trailhead and is therefore the busiest destination on the menu.

I stayed at the lake for a bit over an hour. There was a steady stream of hikers coming and going, and it looked to me like all the good shoreline resting spots were in constant use. At least a few of the folks didn’t seem to realize how well sound travels over water, and the other people there could clearly hear their conversation. I had my picnic lunch and relaxed, while other hikers fished or swam.

My first disappointment of the day was the washed-out bridge that stymied my hike to Skyscraper Reservoir. My second disappointment of the day was my peach. I should have realized it’s far too early in the season to get my favorite Palisade peaches, but when I bought them, they seemed ripe. I want my peach flesh soft, juicy, and sweet. Instead, it was crunchy like an apple; not very juicy, not terribly sweet, and only vaguely peach-flavored. So it goes.

While I ate and rested, I had my GoPro Max doing a timelapse. I should have played around with this camera before doing this. It doesn’t work at all like either of my older GoPros. With those, when I’m doing a timelapse, it snaps a still photo every two seconds (or whatever interval I want). After an hour or so, I’d have a couple of thousand stills that I can crop in whatever way I want. That allows me to make sure the image is not cockeyed, or to crop them in a way that simulates zooming or panning. Disappointment three is that the new camera outputs not a bunch of still photos, but a fully-formed 1080p video. My video editing tools allow me to do the pan/zoom/rotate thing, but I would lose quite a bit of resolution. Unless I figure out how to take a still photo every two seconds, I’ll have to continue using the older camera for time-lapse videos.

Shortly after leaving Lost Lake, the clouds started getting a bit threatening. By the time I made it back to the car, it had started to hail. The skies to the west didn’t look good at all. Perhaps it was a good thing that I couldn’t take my longer intended hike. I had my rain jacket with me, but I might very well have spent a few hours slogging through the rain.

Devils Thumb Lake

Today I return to the Hessie Trailhead in the Indian Peaks Wilderness for a walk up to Jasper Lake and its surroundings. There are three lakes here: Jasper Lake, Storm Lake, and Devils Thumb Lake. There are more than those, actually, as there are three unnamed ponds and a small lake called Upper Storm Lake in the cirque above Storm Lake. There is no official trail from Lake Jasper to Storm Lake and above.

Theoretically, it might be possible to visit these three lakes in one day hike. But because I haven’t been there before and I don’t know what the terrain looks like between Jasper and Storm, I decided to go to Devils Thumb Lake. On the return trip, I’d stop at Jasper and do a little recon of the route to Storm.

Wednesday, September 7

Arriving at the trailhead at about 7 am worked well for me on my first hike from Hessie, so I stuck to that plan. Today I had to gas up the car and the station doesn’t open until 6, so I arrived at the trailhead just a few minutes later than planned.

On my previous Hessie hike, I logged my time at each waypoint. I skipped a few this time, as there aren’t any navigational choices between the car and where I leave the jeep trail and take the Devils Thumb Bypass trail to reach Devils Thumb Lake. The Devils Thumb Bypass trail parallels the Woodland Lake trail, the trails being on opposite sides of Jasper Creek. Although the trails are only a few hundred feet apart, the forest is dense enough that I never saw the other trail. The first hundred yards or so of the bypass trail is the steepest section of trail on the entire hike.

On this trail, you reach the IPW boundary sign in a large meadow about a hundred yards wide and a third of a mile long. The meadow affords the hiker of the first views of Mount Jasper. This section of trail is the easiest: almost flat and almost entirely free of roots and rocks, allowing the hiker to maintain a uniform stride. Too quickly, perhaps, the trail returns to the forest.

It seems that for much of the route from the IPW boundary to Jasper Lake, the trail follows an old roadbed. Jasper Lake is a functioning reservoir. I was unable to find out anything about when it was built, but it’s an earthen berm dam much like several of the (now removed) dams in RMNP. I assume it is of about the same vintage, or just over a century old, and that this old road was used in the dam’s construction.

Anyway, the trail doesn’t always follow the old roadbed. Occasionally, there are small signs along the trail that say “Trail →”. I found these little signs a bit odd, as any other option than following the arrow on the sign would be silly. And yet, once I somehow managed to note the sign but still go off in the wrong direction.

I found myself still on the old roadbed, on a somewhat steep section of it bounded on both sides by willow. The road itself was now a corduroy road: made of logs the width of the road, placed side-by-side. I usually read of these corduroy roads being built in low, swampy areas. This section isn’t in a low area and is somewhat steep. Conversely, willow tends to grow in wetter areas, so the area may be quite wet earlier in the season. By the looks of it, there’s a fair amount of foot traffic through here, so I’m not the only one who has errantly gone this way.

A bit farther up the trail is the junction with a trail to Diamond Lake. Diamond Lake is a fairly short hike when starting on the Fourth of July trailhead. From there, it’s a bit more than two and a half miles. This way, it’s perhaps three times that, plus an extra six or seven hundred vertical feet. A good stretch of this route is above timberline, so the open views may make the extra effort worthwhile.

Slightly more than half a mile further on, the trail reaches the outlet of Jasper Lake. I didn’t pause here but trekked on toward Devils Thumb Lake. I would stop here on the way back.

From Jasper to Devils Thumb, the forest thins. Or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say we’re hiking through grassy areas with clumps of trees rather than forest with clearings. In any event, Devils Thumb and Skyscraper Peak and parts of the Continental Divide are often in view.

The trail soon climbs to and crosses the outlet of Devils Thumb Lake. The lake is about ten acres in area, maybe 425 feet wide at its widest (north to south) and a quarter of a mile in length east to west. It is bounded on the east and west by large, thick stands of willow while the north shore is a tumble of talus. That leaves the south shore as the most easily explored. This shore is covered with forest, and the banks are more steep than flat. If you go down to the water, you can find a view of the entire lake, but the only places I found to sit in the sun and relax offered only partial views of the lake.

I spent about an hour here, between my search for a comfy spot to relax, consumption of a small snack, and application of sunscreen.

At this altitude (and for much of the hike, frankly), most of the wildflowers are gone, either eaten by squirrels or cached in burrows. The only flowers still with blooms were a few yellow species. All the blue, red, and purple were gone. I didn’t see a single columbine on the entire hike.

The relative lack of wildflowers wasn’t the only sign of the changing season. The grasses were beginning to turn yellow, and while the aspen leaves are still green, the ground cover beneath the aspen was already golden.

From the car to Devils Thumb Lake, I encountered only one other hiker. I started seeing more people once I started my return trip. Two sets of two hikers between Devils Thumb and Jasper told me to be on the lookout for a mother moose and her calf. I never spotted any moose, elk, or deer the whole day.

Back at Jasper, I turned off on a spur trail that leads to a few of the campsites. I went far enough along this trail to decide that this is the way to go if you want to head up to Storm Lake. This trail runs along the western shore of the lake, just high enough up the slope to avoid any marshy areas along the shore. I hopped off the trail here to explore a peninsula. I don’t think maps accurately depict the shape of the lake. This is probably because the shape of the lake changes drastically when it’s not full.

Much of the shoreline of the lake is forest, with steep banks. It’s a very scenic lake. At the farthest extent of my peninsula, I found a nice spot for a picnic and had my lunch. I had a nice open view of the corrugated ridge north of the lake. I also had a view of the terrain leading up to Storm Lake and could see a couple of falls made by its outlet stream.

Today’s beer was Hazy IPA by Great Divide Brewing Company. I’m not a huge IPA fan, but when you buy a variety pack you take the non-favorites with the favorites. I selected this particular beer today because I expected the skies to be a bit on the hazy side – an effect of wildfires in the Pacific Northwest. The IPA was a nice change of pace from my recent string of sour fruit ales, and the hazy skies were noticeable but not terribly bad.

Last week, I found myself directly underneath a flight path for eastbound jetliners. It turns out that Jasper Lake is directly beneath a westbound flight path. Like last time, atmospheric conditions were such that these planes weren’t leaving any contrails so I had a little trouble initially spotting them. As they all use the same routes, when you spot one, you can spot them all. Being a city dweller near a regional airport, I’m accustomed to hearing aircraft all the time. But they don’t fly right over my house. If these jets didn’t fly right overhead, I don’t know that I’d be complaining about them.

Here in the first week of September, Jasper Lake is at its fullest. What looks today like the outlet of the lake is actually the dam’s spillway. Some care was taken to make it look natural. The same is true, to an extent, of the dam itself. From below the dam, on the trail, it’s not obvious that it’s a dam. The slope is gentle and is covered with grass (and flowers, perhaps, in July and August).

The water that goes over the spillway makes a 90-degree turn then drops fifteen feet or so to where I’m guessing the original outlet of the lake was. The outlet pipe is here. Once the valve is opened, the lake’s level will drop such that water no longer goes over the spillway; the lake is drained through this pipe. There’s a building of some sort (I didn’t explore it) where I assume the valve is operated.

I’m guessing this dam was built much the same way as the (no longer standing) dams for Sandbeach, Lawn, and Pear Lakes (and others) in RMNP. I can only hope that its construction is more robust than those dams (which, by 1982, all suffered serious structural issues). I understand that dams in Colorado are rated as to their riskiness. This rating is based on the danger to people and structures below the dam should it fail and not just on the soundness (or lack thereof) of the dam itself. If this dam were to fail, it would flood Middle Boulder Creek through the town of Eldora, then Nederland, and ultimately flow into Barker Reservoir.

I ran into a lot more trail traffic on the way out than on the way in. More than half the folks I encountered had dogs with them. There are plenty of signs that tell us dogs must be on leashes. Of all the dogs I saw, only one group kept theirs leashed. All the rest allowed their dogs to run free. One group at least made the attempt to seem like they kept their dogs leashed: they managed to get one of their two on a leash by the time they passed me. But a hundred feet past me, they let that one off to run free. (There was a fair amount of dog poo right on the trail, too.)

I’m sure every dog owner feels that their Fido is a kind, gentle dog not very interested in biting people. But on my daily walks in my neighborhood, I’ve been bitten multiple times by dogs. Back in my misspent youth, when I delivered Avon to the Avon ladies, I encountered hundreds of vicious dogs. So perhaps I’m oversensitive to the issue. But I really wish people would follow the rules on this one and keep Rover on a leash.

I will definitely be back in this area. I’d like to visit Storm Lake (and perhaps Upper Storm Lake and the unnamed ponds, too). In the valley between Jasper and Betty and Bob Lakes, there are two more lakes, one of which is also a reservoir. Skyscraper Reservoir looks to be a concrete dam rather than an earthen berm. I probably won’t get to Skyscraper this season, but it’s definitely on the to-do list. I’ll admit that I’m curious about these alpine lakes that were dammed in service of irrigating farms on the eastern plains.

Hike Segment Data

StartEndDistance (Miles)Slope (Ft/Mile)Elapsed TimeMiles per Hour
CarDevils Thumb Bypass jct1.5297:362.5
Devils Thumb Bypass jctIPW Boundary0.5380:152.0
IPW BoundaryWoodland Lake trail jct0.8201:202.4
Woodland Lake trail jctDiamond Lake trail jct1.5593:491.8
Diamond Lake trail jctJasper Lake0.6223:201.8
Jasper LakeDevils Thumb Lake1.0325:361.7
CarDevils Thumb Lake5.93642:562.0
Distance and Slope are approximate

Betty Lake, Bob Lake, and King Lake

As I tend to do, I kept a browser tab open for about a week showing the topo map of the area I’m going to hike. This week, it was Betty and Bob Lakes in the IPW. They, and King Lake, form the headwaters of South Fork Middle Boulder Creek. (Last week I hiked along North Fork Middle Boulder Creek.)

I came up with all sorts of possibilities, most of which I discarded. In the end, my plan was to get to Betty and Bob Lakes, then do the side trip to King Lake. I had considered going cross-country from Bob to King but figured it’d be faster to use the trail even though it meant losing and regaining about 300′ of elevation. Another one I considered was skipping King and going over the ridge between Betty and Skyscraper Reservoir, collecting Woodland Lake, and returning by the Woodland Lake trail. This would have been the same mileage and elevation gain as doing Betty, Bob, and King. The big unknowable until reaching the top of the ridge is the state of the terrain on the other side.

Monday, July 22

Parking for the Hessie Trailhead is just a short distance past the town of Eldora, on the side of the road. The map indicates a road from this point to a small parking lot at the trailhead, but the road is closed now. It’s about half a mile to the parking lot. More, actually, because there were already ten cars parked on the road. Before I had changed into my boots, two more cars came in and parked.

When I put boots on the trail, the sun had not yet climbed above the ridge, so the area was in shadow. I was thinking I’d be walking on the old road, but right away the road wasn’t so much “road” as “river”. A narrow trail snakes alongside the road/river. It was dark, and last night’s rain still clung to the grass, leaves, and pine needles. The temperature was in the low forties and the humidity made it clammy. It felt a bit … primordial.

The trailhead is right on the river. (North Fork Boulder Creek. The North and South Forks have their confluence just out of sight about five hundred feet downstream.) The parking lot isn’t the end of the road. There’s a stout pedestrian bridge next to a wide, shallow ford for vehicles and livestock. The 4×4 road and trail are one and the same nearly to the IPW boundary. The road crosses the river again, this time using a fairly new bridge (South Fork this time). I’m guessing it was replaced after the 2013 floods. At this bridge is the junction with the trail to Jasper Lake, Storm Lake, and Devil’s Thumb Lake. You could use it for Woodland Lake/Skyscraper Reservoir as well.

Continuing up the road, we next come to a nice waterfall. Not far past the falls is the junction with the Lost Lake trail and a couple bends past that is the junction with the Woodland Lake trail (which could also be used for Jasper, et al). At this junction, we are finally off the disused jeep trail. I didn’t like the road – it was full of loose rocks. At times, I felt like a drunken sailor when a rock would shift underfoot. A quarter of a mile farther on, the trail finally reaches the boundary of Indian Peaks Wilderness, a mile and a half (or more) from the car.

Carved by glaciers, the valley is U-shaped, with the stream at the bottom and the trail a bit above the river, always audible but not always in sight. It’s a nice trail, of fairly constant slope, free of rocks and roots for extended distances, allowing for consistent strides. The forest obscures any surrounding views but isn’t dense – the trees are spaced farther apart than usual, and the sun illuminates the grass and flowers on the forest floor.

Approaching the head of the valley, the forest starts breaking up and the mountain to the south is revealed. Only glimpses to begin, but just before the trail climbs up off the valley floor we see the whole mountain flank. The Rollins Pass Road is clearly visible. There’s a short section where the trestles still stand, but most of the mountainside is littered with old lumber from the road.

The history of Rollins Pass is extensive, with archeological studies indicating it was in use as much as 10,000 years ago. The lumber strewn along the mountainside is what’s left of the snowsheds used by the railroad. Essentially, the snowshed was an almost continuous wooden tunnel that ran near the summit. The idea was to keep the railroad operational for more than just August (workers on the Moffat Road had an adage: “There’s winter and then there’s August”). The snowshed wasn’t a great success. Trains were often stranded for several days (sometimes weeks) during heavy snowstorms because snow could fall or be blown through the wood planking of the sheds. Coal smoke and toxic gasses from the locomotive collected in the snowsheds often causing temporary blindness, loss of consciousness, and sometimes death. The snowsheds are long gone, but the lumber debris has been there for a century and will likely be around for centuries more.

The map shows there’s a pond in the valley below where the trail snakes up the wall, but the map is incorrect. The trail tops out of its climb and reaches the spur trail to Betty and Bob Lakes. ProTrails says the section from the junction to the lake is tricky through willow and krummholz. I found it fairly obvious and easy to follow.

About three hundred feet higher than the trail junction we find Betty Lake. My plan was to skip right on by and take my first break at Bob Lake. Here is where I was foiled. The trail crosses the outlet of Betty, which flows through a bunch of willow. It flows fast and deep. There are two or three branches thrown across, but they’re old and small. When I put any weight on them, they bowed badly. It’s too far to jump. If I had bothered to bring my trek poles, I’d have crossed it without too much trepidation. But the risk isn’t just wet feet: I judge the water to be nearly thigh deep here.

The lesson here is to bring the poles on routes I haven’t traveled before.

I spent a few minutes looking through the krummholz for a dead limb I could use as a pole to make the crossing but couldn’t find anything. So I gave up and looked for a nice spot for a short break. I worked my way to the north shore and got the idea that I could get to Bob this way, but when I worked around to where I could see the whole route there was more willow than I wanted to deal with. So much for going to Bob.

I had a snack on the shore of Betty, but I didn’t linger long. I worked my way back down to the King Lake junction and headed up that way. The trail continues past the lake and up to the Continental Divide, reaching a parking lot on Rollins Pass.

A couple of hikers arrived just after I did. They wanted me to take their picture, and we chatted a bit. They left about the same time another couple hiked down from the pass. These two were from Arkansas and had rented a 4×4 for the trip over the pass. The guy stripped down to his shorts and took a quick swim in the lake.

I stayed at King for nearly an hour, ate my picnic lunch, drank my beer (Tivoli Brewing’s Mile Hi Hefe, which I’ll have to call “Two Mile Hi Hefe”), and watched the world go by.

The weather couldn’t decide whether to be threatening or not. A short squall blew over while I was going from Betty to King but it didn’t amount to much. After leaving King, I heard thunder to the north, but I could see no dark clouds and there were large patches of blue sky overhead. The thunder died out after twenty minutes or so, except for one late rumble perhaps fifteen minutes later.

On the hike out, I ran into a couple about my age. They were carrying backpacks and had with them three fully-loaded llamas. We had a quick chat. They were looking for nice camping spots near King Lake. I can’t help but wonder how long they were going to stay, and in what luxury. They must have had a couple of hundred pounds of gear.

When my water was two-thirds gone, I found a nice rock to sit on beside the stream. I ate my peach (a delicious Colorado Palisade peach: big, sweet, and juicy) and then refilled my water bottle.

I started early enough this morning that I encountered only two hikers between the car and the King Lake junction. It was quite a bit more crowded in the afternoon, particularly after I started passing the various trail junctions. I ran across so many people, I was trying to picture how far down the road people must have parked. I even ran into a group of four or five folks wearing flip-flops and carrying no water. I don’t imagine they made it too far.

Back at the car, I felt pretty worn out. But it was a good worn-out.

I’ll definitely do some more hiking from the Hessie trailhead. By missing Bob Lake this time, I have an excuse to do this trail again. Skyscraper Reservoir is still in use, so I’d like to get a good look at it and compare it to the former reservoirs in the Park. Counting the three lakes I tried to get to today, there are eight lakes on Hessie trails that are at roughly 11,000′ to 11,500′ in elevation within a mile or so of the Continental Divide.