Tag Archives: Time Lapse

Colorful Lake Haiyaha

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Back on June 28, a large rockfall event occurred on the south slope of Hallett Peak, halfway up Chaos Canyon. My college geology teacher probably would have called it a “mass wasting event”. Mass wasting is simply the movement of rock or soil downslope due to gravity. In RMNP over the last decade, we’ve seen a number of these but most were due to flooding. The water loosened things up and gravity took over. This one, though, was not like those others.

Mountains erode over time. Generally, we think of erosion as being due to water or wind. Very little of it is due to wind. Erosion due to the normal, continuous flow of water isn’t that great, either, mostly just making jagged rocks round. Mass wasting, whether it be landslides due to flooding or rockslides like what happened in Chaos Canyon in late June, is by far the largest contributor to erosion.

Due to the rockslide, the NPS closed off access to most of Chaos Canyon above the lake. Obviously, things are quite unstable there and it’s entirely possible that more slides are in store. This closure doesn’t really affect me, as I’m not a rock climber. I’ve only been a significant distance up the canyon from the lake once when Ed and I hiked to the small, unnamed tarn near the head of the canyon.

It’s not the slide, though, that interests me. I’m interested in the glacial flour. Also called glacial silt or rock flour, glacial flour is the sediment from ground-up rock particles produced during glacial erosion. This stuff is very finely ground. The particle sizes typically range from 2 microns to 65 microns. Particles that small will hang suspended in water for a long time. (A human hair is around 70 microns thick, while wheat flour is in the 10-41 micron range.)

This glacial flour is what gives the turquoise color to lakes that are fed by glaciers.

Clear water absorbs longer wavelengths of visible light (yellow, orange, and red) and strongly reflects shorter blue and blue-green wavelengths. Therefore, unless there is another pigment present near the surface of the water, like algae, it will always appear blue or blue-green. The glacial flour that floats in the water provides reflects light back to our eyes and makes the water appear both opaque and bright. Interestingly, the composition of glacial flour absorbs most of the blue light and reflects some blue and green, as well as yellow, orange, and red (but, as mentioned above, these colors are absorbed by water). With the elimination of the colors absorbed by both the glacial flour and the water itself, what is left is mostly green and some blue light reflected back off the glacial flour to our eyes: turquoise. The more glacial flour present in the waters, the greener the water will appear.

There is no glacier in Chaos Canyon; there hasn’t been one for a long time. But it turns out that a significant amount of rock flour is released in these rockslides. There was a smaller rockslide here back in 2018. The lake changed color for a few months, but to a much lesser degree than right now.

I can’t predict how long the lake will have this color. It is my guess, though, that the water will be clear again next spring. Lakes fed by active glaciers are always being fled flour, but I doubt snowmelt will pick up more flour from this rockfall and so I expect the lake to be clear again in the spring.

Then: If I want to see the lake decked out in turquoise, I better go now.

Tuesday, September 13

Lake Haiyaha is only a couple of miles from the Bear Lake parking lot, so it’s one of the shortest hikes I take. And, being so close to the parking lot, the place is always crowded.

I followed the masses up the trail to Nymph Lake and Dream Lake. It was a conga line. The flip-flops and no-water crowd was well represented. Nearly everyone was talking. Some hikers on their way back to Bear Lake gave words of encouragement to those going up: “You’re almost there!” It amuses me that everyone seems to think everyone else is going to the same place they’re going to. In this case, “You’re almost there” meant Dream Lake, 1.1 miles from the parking lot.

At the turnoff for Haiyaha, the crowd thins a bit. I had three or four minutes where I could see nobody ahead of me or behind me.

Just before reaching the lake’s outlet, I head west to reach the northern shore of the lake. The trail dumps the crowd onto the boulder-strewn southern shore. To get to my spot on the quieter shore, I have to navigate a bit of talus and dodge downed trees, but it’s worth it. Even though nobody is over here, you don’t really get any solitude: sound travels surprisingly well over water. You can not only see the people on the other side of the lake, you can sometimes make out what they’re saying.

Sitting on my rock, enjoying a snack, I concentrated on my nearer surroundings. The water is translucent for only maybe six inches. Any water deeper than that appears opaque. I was wondering what effect the glacial flour has on fish, but I did see trout rise a few times. They can still see insects on the surface because of the shadow, and they’re now pretty much invisible to predators, so unless the flour interferes with their gills, the fish are probably doing fine.

I wanted to make my way to the top of the ridge between here and Dream Lake. I’ve been up there twice, once in winter and once in spring. There’s a really nice view of Haiyaha from there. I never made it. I was too far west when I started and never got more than halfway. I spent about twenty minutes in the attempt before capitulating and heading to the crowded side of the lake.

  • The Slide Area
  • Chaos
  • North Shore pano
  • Hazy Longs Peak
  • South Shore pano
  • Milky Stream
  • Not-So-Turquois Pond

There’s a social trail that leaves the main trail just before the main trail starts crossing a rock pile. A few feet up the social trail, the Park Service has posted a sign showing the area of the canyon that’s closed. I worked around the south shore for a bit until I found a nice, flat, unoccupied boulder to sit and have my picnic lunch on.

Today’s beer: Great Divide Brewing Company’s American Lager.

On the way back, rather than return the way I came, past Dream and Nymph, I headed down the “back way” on the trail that goes to Glacier Gorge junction.

An interesting thing about Lake Haiyaha is that it has a leak. In winter, the lake drains to a level several feet below the level of the outlet. I’m not exactly sure where this leak comes out onto the ground, but this trail follows the stream formed by the leak for a short way, to where it fills a pond. The stream itself looks milky, and the pond is less green and more a milky, pale blue.

I’m happy I got to see the lake in this condition. The small rockslide in 2018 didn’t have nearly the same effect as this year’s big slide. Seeing the lake this color may be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And, although I complain about the crowds, I think it’s great that so many people can enjoy the Park. Besides, it helps me appreciate my hikes where I get hours of solitude.

[See some of my older Lake Haiyaha photos here.]

Devils Thumb Lake

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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.

  • View at the Boundary
  • Corduroy Road
  • Devils Thumb Lake
  • Devils Thumb Lake
  • Unnamed pond near Jasper Lake
  • Jasper Lake
  • Today’s Beer
  • The Spillway
  • Dam and Outlet Pipe

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

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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.

  • Trestles
  • Betty Lake
  • King Lake
  • At the Pass
  • Food for Thought
  • Taking a Dip
  • Snowshed Debris
  • “Look out! There are llamas!”

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.

Upper Ouzel Creek 1

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I’ve been planning this backpacking trip for several years now. The idea is to reach both Isolation Lake and Frigid Lake. It may be possible that I could reach Isolation Lake on a day hike, but after my visit to Eagle and Box Lakes (reached from Thunder Lake), I decided that Foster’s route to Frigid Lake would not work for me. The answer, I decided, was to camp at Upper Ouzel Creek and try to reach both lakes from there.

In fact, I made the attempt a few years ago. It was not well thought out. I somehow decided that a trip in the first week of July would work just fine. There was so much snow. I was able to pitch my tent on dry ground, but the campsite featured several snowdrifts. I didn’t even make it to Bluebird Lake that time, let alone another thousand feet of elevation to Isolation. Needless to say, I took a bit more care in choosing when to make another attempt.

I keep telling myself that, on one of these trips, I’ll try to get a photo of the night sky: the Milky Way. When selecting my dates, though, I don’t give any consideration to the lunar calendar. This time I got a bit lucky. The moon would be in the first quarter and would set not long after the sun. So for this trip, I’ll bring the tripod. It’s an extra four pounds. And, while I’m adding extra weight, why not bring the critter cam? What’s one more pound?

Wednesday, August 3

Gordon decided to join me on this trip and I managed to talk him into driving. I told him that our first day’s hike wasn’t long so we didn’t need to get an early start, but I was concerned about getting a parking spot at the trailhead. The timed-entry passes are in effect for Wild Basin, but only after 9 am. However, I’m sure the parking lot fills up well before then. So it was an early start nonetheless. We arrived a bit before 7:30 to find plenty of available parking.

I’ve described the route to Bluebird Lake in earlier posts, so I won’t repeat myself.

I think I first hiked this trail back in 2008 or so. That would have been thirty years after the Ouzel fire. There’s a section of trail that runs along the top of a ridge above Ouzel Falls to the junction with the spur trail to Ouzel Lake. This section of trail was a bit of a two-edged sword: with no trees, the open views of all the surrounding mountains are impressive, but with no shade, the hiker is subject to the merciless sun.

Today, though, I was struck by how much the trees have grown in the last few years. The once open view is getting closed in. The vast majority of young pine trees are more than six feet tall now. Our two-edged sword is no more: the trees block the views but don’t provide any shade. So it goes.

The Upper Ouzel Creek campsite, by my reckoning, is about a third of a mile below Bluebird Lake. The trail signs indicate it’s farther. It’s a steep third of a mile, though, gaining nearly four hundred feet. I think my favorite part of the trail to Bluebird is a steep section just above the campsite. Maps of the area don’t indicate any switchbacks, probably because they’re too close together to show. Those switchbacks carry the hiker up a slope carpeted with wildflowers. The whole rainbow is represented: yellow flowers make up the majority, but there are red, orange, blue, indigo, and violet flowers, too.

We arrived at our campsite just as the prior occupants were packing up. They were there to fish; they stayed two nights and dipped their lines in both Bluebird and Ouzel, but no luck at Bluebird.

Having arrived at our destination before noon, we had plenty of time to kill. We were done setting up camp and eating lunch by 1 pm and so headed up to Bluebird to sit and relax and watch the world go by.

I was a bit surprised to see several hikers reach the lake after we did. One group, a family of four, stayed at Bluebird until about 4 pm. I guess because I have an hour-and-a-half drive home after my hikes, I want to be back to the car no later than 5 or 5:30. Those folks, if they kept up a good hiking pace, wouldn’t be back to the trailhead until 8 pm.

We hung out at the lake for nearly four hours. The weather seemed to be threatening: the white, puffy clouds grew bigger and darker but we never got more than a few sprinkles. Down the valley, though, it looked at times to be raining heavily. Without wind, it would have been comfortable in shirtsleeves, but it was breezy enough to warrant putting on a jacket.

I’m generally at these alpine lakes for no more than an hour, generally around noon. Being there a bit later and for an extended time I enjoyed watching the shadows change on the surrounding mountains. I ran the GoPro from two different positions, watched a little pika navigate through and around the rocks trying to avoid us humans, and investigated the nearby flora.

Gordon found some remnants of the dam that used to be here. I told him that I’d read about the removal of concrete. I was thinking I’d heard that 1,100 tons of concrete had been removed but was unsure of the number. It’s actually five million pounds of concrete and rebar. That’s 2,500 tons. They airlifted it out in 1989 and 1990 (well before my first visit here). I can’t help but wonder how they got that much material up here. There’s nothing like a road, or the remains of a road, and the dams in the area were all built around the turn of the twentieth century. The material sure wasn’t airlifted in. More on this topic later in another post.

  • Wild Basin Squall
  • Pika
  • Mahana Peak and Bluebird Lake
  • Backcountry Charcuterie
  • Night Sky

Had I given it any thought, I might have taken my dinner with me to the lake. As no forethought was involved, we had to return to camp for dinner. The breeze we had at the lake was absent at camp. Normally, this is a good thing. But not tonight. We were besieged by mosquitoes.

I sprayed a liberal dose of repellent on all my exposed skin. This was only a partial solution. Before long, I applied a second coat and sprayed my clothes as well. These measures made it so the little buggers didn’t land on me, but it didn’t keep them away from me. From our arrival back at camp until dark, when I retreated to the tent, there were never less than a couple of dozen mosquitoes buzzing within twelve or fifteen inches of my head. While eating, I had to be careful not to ingest one accidentally. These mosquitoes were relentless.

Today’s beer was a Colorado Native Palisade Peach tart ale. Delicious.

Until dark, I kept a close monitor on the cloud situation. Several times it seemed like the clouds were finally breaking up, only to have another batch of them appear over the divide. By dark, I decided that the sky would soon enough be cloud-free, so I set an alarm for 11:30. I figured the quarter moon would be down by then, the skies would be clear, and I’d be able to try my hand at astrophotography.

I was in luck: the skies had cleared. At least, I think they did. There may have been some high, thin clouds in the east. I had a couple of suggestions for exposure settings. I tried them, and a few others. It took only a few minutes, and I was back in the sack before midnight.

But I never really got back to sleep.

Finally, here’s the first timelapse of the trip:

The Data

I’ve been recording how long it takes me to hike from point A to point B for quite a while. I share the timetables so somebody else might be able to get a clue how long it might take them. In the table below, for example, someone who has gone to Ouzel Falls but not to Ouzel Lake can compare how long it took them to reach the falls to my time. Whether they were faster or slower to the Falls, they can extrapolate a time for the hike to the lake. Also, next time I hike any of these sections of trail, I’ll have a good idea of how long it’ll take.

LocationArriveDepart
Trailhead7:25 am
Campsite shortcut8:00 am
Calypso Cascade8:14 am
Ouzel Falls8:45 am9:09 am
Bluebird/Ouzel trail jct9:21 am
Ouzel trail jct10:12 am
Campsite11:40 am
Arrival time and departure time are the same where no departure time is given

It didn’t really occur to me that I could use times from one hike and forecast how long it might take me to do another hike. Certainly, there are many factors. How steep is the trail? Am I carrying a backpack or a day pack? What’s the elevation? Am I on a trail or bushwhacking? How long was I hiking prior to a specific section – how fatigued am I?

StartEndDistance (Miles)Slope (Ft/Mile)Elapsed TimeMiles per Hour
TrailheadCampsite shortcut1.4250:352.4
Campsite shortcutCalypso Cascade0.4625:141.3
Calypso CascadeOuzel Falls0.8350:311.5
Ouzel FallsBluebird/Ouzel trail jct0.40:122.0
Bluebird/Ouzel trail jctOuzel trail jct1.4425:511.6
Ouzel trail jctCampsite1.54601:281.0
TrailheadCampsite5.93753:511.5
Distance and Slope are approximate

Frozen Lake

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There is no shortage of stunning scenery in Rocky Mountain National Park. I’d even say that that sentence is a bit of an understatement.

My loquacious nature shows up regularly on the trail when I have brief encounters with other hikers. In the back-and-forth of “where are you headed”, “where are you from”, and so on, it often comes up that I’ve traveled extensively through the Park. And, so, it’s only natural that I often get asked what’s my favorite place to visit.

It’s a surprisingly easy question to answer: Black Lake. Specifically, climb up the inlet stream two or three hundred feet of elevation. The views there are tough to beat.

There are eight named lakes in Glacier Gorge. In my misspent youth, when I thought you could only visit places that had official trails, I repeatedly visited Mills Lake, Jewell Lake, and Black Lake. On one visit to Black Lake, we saw the trail that climbs alongside the inlet stream. We explored a bit, with the payoff being the fabulous views of Black Lake, McHenry’s Peak, and all the rest.

I’ve now visited all eight of the named lakes, plus the unnamed lake commonly called ‘Italy Lake’. Actually, I’ve been to all of them at least twice. Except for Frozen Lake, which I’ve only been to once before.

My first visit to Frozen Lake was back in July 2012, with Ed. This was just a few months after a microburst devastated a section of Glacier Gorge, knocking down thousands of trees. We had to crawl over, under, and around downed trees. I’m pretty sure they had the trail back in shape by the end of that summer. It was a very interesting hike at the time. Tree roots tend not to go very deep in these parts, and when a tree is knocked down like they were, the trunks don’t break at ground level: instead, the tree is knocked over with a large disk of roots, rocks, and soil still attached to the base. I think some of those knocked-down trees are still alive, living off their root disk.

Anywho, it’s time to make another trip to Frozen Lake.

Thursday, July 21

For this visit, I obtained a timed-entry pass good between 5 am and 7 am. Gordon joined me, saying that he wanted to be back by 6 pm. I told him that was doable, but might be tight. I said that if we left my place by 5:30 we’d enter before 7 and, parking at the park-and-ride, we’d put boots on the trail by 7:30. I reckoned that if we stayed at the lake for only half an hour, we could make it back to my house by 6 pm. So that was the plan.

We were off to a rocky start when Gordon showed up at my place with a flat tire. We might make it back here by 6, but it’d probably take him a while to get going. Oh well.

Arriving at the Park, we queued up in the line of cars headed up the Bear Lake corridor. The line this week was longer than last time I was here, a couple of weeks ago, for my Sky Pond hike. That time, there were two rangers checking passes. This time there was only one, and the line we found ourselves in was roughly twice as long as last time. Also, last time I wasn’t asked if I had a day pass. I didn’t, and my annual pass had expired. This time I did get asked. I said I have a Senior Pass, but she didn’t demand I produce it.

I know it takes me almost exactly an hour to get to Mills Lake from the Glacier Gorge parking lot/trailhead. I’m not as sure how long it takes to get to Black Lake from there, or how long it may have taken me to get to any of the lakes above Black Lake. I estimated that it would take an hour and a half to get from Mills to Black and another hour and a half to get to Frozen. So I was quite pleased to see that we reached Mills in a few minutes less than an hour, and Black in about an hour and a quarter. So we were already a bit ahead of schedule.

This summer, I’ve taken to using my trek poles. I bought them when I bought my snowshoes. I used them once or twice but wasn’t very happy with them. I’m not sure why I decided to give them another try, but here we are. My thinking is, I’d find them useful when I’m off trail, or for crossing streams or navigating talus fields. But I don’t want to use them all the time. I figured out how to carry them on my lumbar pack. Reduced to their minimum length they’re still a bit long: with them on my pack, I’m now as wide as if I were standing with hands on hips, elbows out. I have to be careful passing other hikers on the trail, and if I get into a willow patch I have to take them off the pack.

So, at the base of the climb above Black Lake, I started using the poles. I didn’t really need them until we reached a place where the stream goes alongside a tilted granite slab. These ten feet or so always give me a little heartburn. Not so with the poles.

The trail above Black Lake is pretty easy to follow until you gain the large bench that holds Frozen, Green, and Blue Lakes. At some point, however, you find yourself in a place where you can more or less go whichever way you want, subject to stream crossings and fields of willow. On our way down, we spent more time on what passes for the trail in this area than we did on the way up. I think our route up was a bit easier than the well-traveled trail.

The gist of the hike from the top of the climb from Black up and over to Frozen is a series of large inclined slabs separated by grass or willow. There are cairns throughout the area, generally indicating paths through the willow or leading to the stream crossings. So navigation is pretty simple: just bear to the west of the Spearhead.

The weather was beautiful if perhaps a bit warm at lower elevations. At 11,600′ above sea level, it was about as pleasant as it gets: sunny, warm, not terribly breezy, with mostly clear skies. I was thinking we’d only sit at the lake for half an hour, but before I knew it an hour had passed. (Today’s beer: Avery Brewing’s Electric Sunshine, a tart ale brewed with papaya, pineapple, kiwi, and huckleberry.)

  • Mills Lake and Glacier Gorge
  • Ribbon Falls
  • Black Lake
  • Longs Peak, Keyboard of the Winds, Pagoda Mountain, The Spearhead
  • The Spearhead
  • Longs Peak detail: The Keyhole (at left)
  • Frozen Lake
  • Longs Peak and Storm Peak
  • Frozen Lake

Again, I usually had a fair amount of heartburn descending the steeper bits of the inclined slabs. What can I say? I’m a bit of a weenie. I was much happier having poles, but I was still a bit slow in places. But they did wonders for my confidence.

We could hear voices but didn’t see where they were coming from. I figured they were climbers working up the Spearhead. I stopped a few times trying to spot them but never did see anybody. I also tried inspecting the area around the Keyhole on Longs. The lens I normally use isn’t much of a telephoto, and I didn’t bring a longer lens. I thought I saw some people up there but couldn’t be sure.

One thing I will say: If I had seen this view before climbing Longs Peak, I never would have climbed Longs Peak. From here, it looks to me like one would have to be insane to climb it. It’s not straight up-and-down, but it’s pretty dang steep. And large sections are giant slabs that look to have no footholds or handholds. I have climbed it, though. Let’s just say I was highly adrenalized by the time I got back to the Keyhole. Let’s also say I see no reason to do it again.

The hike back to the trailhead was uneventful. We got sprinkled on twice, very briefly, not enough to even wet the rocks. I was quite surprised at how few other hikers we ran into. Part of that, no doubt, is because we used the Fire Trail. But I expected quite a few people at both Mills and Black. I don’t think we came across more than two dozen people all day.

We did enjoy a close encounter with a cow elk. She was crossing the trail just a few feet in front of me. She was quite habituated to people and didn’t really give us a second thought. She worked across the trail munching on grass and flowers and came within twelve or fifteen feet of us. After we passed, we could hear her whistle. That was Gordon’s description of the noise. It’s not a bugle or trumpet. More like a … bass flute? She was whistling up a storm; we could hear her for quite a distance down the trail.

Even with our extended stay at Frozen Lake, we were back to the car ahead of my original schedule. Traffic wasn’t as bad as I expected and we were back to my place by 5:30. Gordon still had to deal with his flat tire. This was a bit more difficult than we anticipated. His tire iron wasn’t the correct size for his lug nuts, and his jack didn’t lift his truck high enough to get the flat tire off, let alone to get a fully inflated tire back on. Luckily for Gordon, his nephew wasn’t too far away and had a jack he used to lift his lifted Jeep. We got him back on the road not much after 6:30. Typing this, I haven’t heard from him. So I’m hoping he actually made it home without any additional drama.

Except for Gordon’s flat tire, I’d say the day was a success!

Timetable

UpDown
Trailhead7:24 am3:33 pm
Mills Lake8:18 am2:38 pm
Black Lake9:32 am1:15 pm
Frozen Lake11:11 am12:07 pm

And, finally, the time-lapse:

Lower Forest Lake

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I can’t wait to get the summer hiking season going. This is often a slight problem in the first week of June: in Denver, it seems summer is here, but where I want to hike, it’s not summer at all. A hike in the first week of June always means hiking over snow when you get over about 10,000′. Perhaps even more so, given our two large storms in late May: one that dumped enough snow here at the house to produce a truckload of broken tree limbs, and one a week after that that produced over an inch of precipitation that manifested as about eighteen inches of snow above 9,000′.

Having neglected to plan ahead by purchasing a timed entry pass for RMNP, I decided another visit to James Peak Wilderness would be a good alternative. Of the five hikes here, the lakes that are lowest are Forest Lakes. I did this hike last year about this time, so this will be a repeat.

June 3, 2022

In July and August, you have to get to the trailhead quite early to find a parking place. On a weekday in the first week of June, parking isn’t a problem. I arrived at about 8:15 and was the third car in the lot. At the trailhead, I signed into the log book as the first entry of the day. Either the parties belonging to the other two cars camped overnight or neglected to sign in.

On the lower part of the trail – the first quarter of a mile – the trail isn’t so much a trail as a small river. The next quarter-mile, the trail is in shade. There wasn’t any snow on the trail, but banks of snow lined both sides of the trail. Clearly, I’d be dealing with a bit more snow than last year. Last year, we didn’t start hiking on snow until after we crossed the bridge over Arapaho Creek (at about 9,800′). Today, I was trudging over snow almost 500′ lower. So it goes.

Given the recent snows and the apparent small number of visitors, I was a bit concerned about route-finding. There were quite a few tracks in the snow just above the bridge, but they quickly petered out until there were only two sets: a pair of snowshoe tracks heading up, and the tracks of a hiker just in boots that looked to be a round-trip: both uphill and down. One thing about following tracks in the snow: you have to hope that the people making the tracks went where you want to go, and they know how to get there.

I didn’t bring snowshoes but did have the micro-spikes. The snow was pretty good – I only postholed twice on the way up to the lake. At the lake, I met the hikers who left the snowshoe tracks. They had hiked up yesterday and camped at the lake. Last year, there were plenty of snow-free rocks around the lake to sit on. Today there was just one. The three of us sat there and had our picnics.

  • View of the Contental Divide
  • Panorama shot
  • Only the lake’s outlet is free of ice
  • Meadow snow melting
  • Stream carving snow

I hung out for about an hour before packing up to leave. In this time, with the sun shining brightly on the snow, my hike out was slightly transformed. Each day the sun works its magic on the top of the snow, melting it a bit. Then, overnight, the top freezes, making it easy to walk on in the morning. My hike out was quite different than the hike in: I postholed hundreds of times. That’s only a slight exaggeration.

It may be counter-intuitive that the snow melts from the bottom, not the top. For the most part, you want to hike along the tops of the snowbanks and avoid stepping next to any rocks or trees that may be poking through the snow. Anything darker than the snow will heat up faster than the snow. If you step next to it, you’ll likely posthole either to mid-thigh or until your boot hits something solid. And, because the snow melts from the bottom, whatever solid you hit will be covered by running water. And any low spots between the tops of the snowbanks are good places to posthole, too.

I ran across one guy hiking to the lake and another couple quite near the trailhead. When I got back to the car, the parking lot was not quite twice as crowded as in the morning: there were now five cars in addition to my own.

Here’s a short timelapse of the sky. Notice that my camera slowly melted into the snow.

Crystal Lake

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Up to now, I’ve been buying my timed entry passes well in advance. They released the vast majority of passes back in June for June and July. They also release a tranche of passes two days in advance. That is if you didn’t buy a pass in advance for, say, July 1, and you decide you want to go, they make an additional number available on 6/29 at 8 am MT. If you look at a date that has sold out, it’ll show how many they’ll release 2 days in advance. For the 6-8 am slot, it looks like 65 passes each day.

Wanting to hike on Wednesday, I signed on Monday morning to get a pass. I refreshed my page promptly at 8 and made my purchase. By the time I selected the date, time, and type of pass, it said only 40 of the 65 were still available. After completing the process, I went back to see how many were left. At 8:03, it was down to 7.

Clearly, the best way to get a pass is to buy one when the bulk of them are released. And, as it turns out, passes for August become available on July 1. Of course, I’ll be on the trail when August passes become available but I’m thinking that they won’t get snapped up much faster than they were in June. When I made my first reservations, there were hundreds available for each day/time I wanted.

Having obtained my pass, the next issue was where to hike. I’ve done a pretty thorough job of visiting lakes that are readily accessible. What’s left will either require camping or are at elevations or in locations where there’s likely still too much snow on the ground. And I’d like to avoid the crowded trails in the Bear Lake area. With this in mind, I decided on Crystal Lake, which I last visited back in 2011. It’s high enough that snow might be a problem, but the higher sections of trail are on south facing slopes.

Wednesday, July 1

I was thinking I wanted to be on the trail at about 7:30. I thought the lake is seven and a half miles up the trail, but I see that the Foster guide says it’s 7.9, with 2,960′ of elevation gain. I figured I could maintain a two mile per hour pace up to Lawn Lake, then somewhat slower for the bit above eleven thousand feet.

I left the house at 5:30 and, encountering little traffic, I was at the trailhead a few minutes before seven. There were plenty of empty parking spaces, and a couple of hikers started on their way while I was getting ready. I hit the trail spot on 7:00. Before leaving the car, I sprayed on some mosquito repellent. I don’t normally carry it with me for a day hike and hoped that a single application would do the trick.

The first section of trail gets your heart going right away, climbing about 700′ in a little over a mile. That’s about double the average rate of climb for the entire hike. The trail to Lawn Lake is a pack trail, so it’s mostly free of roots and rocks and never gets too steep.

The first navigation point is the junction with the Ypsilon Lake trail. I didn’t catch up to the hikers who left the parking lot before me, but I did encounter a group of four hiking back to the trailhead. If they were camping, they left their campsite quite early, and I can’t imagine how any day trippers were already on their way out.

The next section of trail, a bit over four miles, more or less follows Roaring River. When the river is in view, it’s quite dramatic. The Lawn Lake dam failed back in 1982, releasing something like 30 million cubic feet of water at a peak rate of 18,000 cubic feet per second. The effects are almost as visible today as they were nearly 40 years ago. The careful observer will note places where the trail was washed away. That really doesn’t explain it properly: it wasn’t so much that the trail was washed away, but that the hillside the trail passed over was washed away.

There are places where a hundred feet of hillside looks to have been scoured away. Trees on the edge of these cliffs are dead but still standing, half their roots supported only by air. Continuing erosion is obvious. Not just earth being washed away from above by rain and snow, but the stream still undercutting the banks. In wider spots, the deluge deposited large piles of tree trunks. In narrower places, everything was washed away, leaving bare bedrock. In some places, the flood scar is visible from miles away. The pace of life is slower at altitude; even in forty years, new trees and shrubs have barely started growing back.

Mummy Mountain and flood-scarred Roaring River

For the most part, this section of trail is easy walking. Fairly long stretches of nearly level trail are broken by short, steeper climbs that feature a few switchbacks. As the trail more or less follows the stream, it’s at the bottom of the forest valley, so there are no views to speak of. I also will note that my mosquito preparation was (today, anyway) unnecessary: I neither heard nor saw a single mosquito.

Not long before reaching Lawn Lake, there’s a junction with the Black Canyon Trail. You could theoretically get to the Cow Creek trailhead or Gem Lake or Twin Owls from here, but I’m not sure why anybody would want to. I haven’t hiked it, but I imagine it’s mile after mile of vista-free walking. But it exists, and appears to be both well-maintained and well-traveled. So somebody must find it useful.

Lawn Lake is the end of the pack trail. There are two hitching posts here, one for llamas, one for horses. From here to Crystal Lake, the trail is narrower and steeper. At times it goes right through small patches of willow where it resembles a game trail and will get you a wet boot if you’re not watching your step.

Just above Lawn Lake the trail rises above treeline and leaves the forest behind. I stopped here with the idea that I’d slather on some SPF. But the sun’s warmth was a bit feeble and the breeze was definitely not feeble so instead of sunscreen, I put on my jacket. Much of my hike so far had been in shade. It was well after nine before a single ray of sunlight hit my body. I was expecting things to warm up as the day progressed, but clearly that wasn’t in the cards this morning. I did put sunscreen on my face and hands, though, as the sun above 11,000′, while pleasant, is harsh.

To this point, I hadn’t seen any hikers (other than the group of four right at the start). There was a guy fishing at Lawn Lake and a hiker there sitting on a rock. While I was getting my jacket on, she passed me on her way to Crystal Lake.

Lawn Lake, with Longs Peak in the distance

There really wasn’t much snow along the way. In some shady spots around Lawn Lake there were a few drifts not much bigger than a few paces across. A bit more than half way up the slope there’s another trail junction, with a spur trail that takes you to The Saddle. I considered heading up this way, not to the top of the saddle, but far enough up to get a view of Crystal Lake from above. It was still fairly early, so I had plenty of time, but my pace had slowed considerably and the cool, stiff breeze was a deterrent. I continued to the lake.

Mummy Mountain towers over Lawn Lake

Not far after the junction I came to the only stretch of snow worth mentioning. Standing on the eastern edge and looking west, I couldn’t see the trail. Lucky for me, the gal who passed me had already crossed the snow and was working her way along the far edge. Scanning the terrain above her, I finally spotted the trail and so I made a direct line for it. I didn’t quite catch up to her, but I essentially wiped out the lead she had on me.

There are two lakes here, nearly side-by-side and differing by only three feet of elevation. The first one is Little Crystal Lake. It’s very scenic. Almost exactly as scenic, in fact, as its larger neighbor. But it is very much the “red-headed stepchild”; nobody seems to stop here to take in the view.

Little Crystal Lake and Fairchild Mountain

I caught up to the other hiker as we climbed onto the boulders that make up the shore of the lake. There we found a guy who was making an attempt at fishing. We sat on a rock about ten feet apart and chatted while we ate our lunches.

When I was last here, I had the place to myself. Today, at first it was three of us. I stayed about an hour and a half. While there, a group of four hikers arrived, then a solo hiker, then two more. On my way past Little Crystal Lake, another solo hiker arrived. Clearly, this place is more popular than I thought. Usually, if I’m going to a lake more than seven miles away there aren’t many (or any) other visitors.

Crystal Lake

Ironically, on the way up, from the Ypsilon trail junction to Lawn Lake I didn’t see anyone on the trails. And, likewise, on the way out it was the same thing. Usually, at any lake I visit where there are a dozen or so people, I’ll meet people on the trail who are headed to the same place, or have been there and are on their way back.

I didn’t see any big game, but the marmot population at Lawn Lake, Crystal Lake, and in between was impressive. They weren’t too shy, either. One perched himself on a pedestal-like rock and looked at me as if to say, “I’m ready for my portrait now!” Another made it’s home in a hole right next to the trail, only backing down out of sight when I got within a few feet.

Timetable

UpDown
Trailhead7:00 am4:08 pm
Ypsilon jct7:35 am3:33 pm
Black Canyon jct9:27 am1:50 pm
Lawn Lake9:45 am1:35 pm
Crystal Lake11:00 am12:30 pm

Mills Lake

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Saturday, December 15

Chad and I hiked to Mills Lake. He drove. He didn’t want to make the trip on my summer tires in spite of my assurance that it would only be the last mile that’s dicey. We got to the Glacier Gorge parking lot around 8:30. It was about half full. In the summer, it takes me almost exactly an hour to get to the lake from the parking lot, but today it took an hour and a half.

We took the fire trail. When I came down it after visiting Ed’s igloo the tracks followed the summer trail but now it’s switched to it’s snowy winter route, up the gully. An outcropping of rock was covered with large icicles fifteen or twenty feet high.

There was a good crowd at the lake. It was pretty windy, but we stood in the lee of a small stand of pine. Even though it was out of the wind, I had a pretty nice view up the gorge. The sun is about as low in the sky as it will get as we’re just a few days from the solstice.

The view of the gorge as you near the lake is one of the most impressive views in the park. Today when we arrived there, clouds hung in giant curls from eastern flank of Thatchtop. Longs Peak  plowed the wind, leaving a wake of condensation. The wind whipped through at high speed, kicking up clouds of snow up throughout the gorge. The low sun backlit the blowing snow, showing the wind’s form; its flows and eddies.

We were there for nearly an hour. I thought we’d be doing good if we to stayed much over half an hour, but our spot was comfortably out of the wind and I managed to blather on about something or other until I sufficiently bored Chad and he suggested we make our way back to the car.

Loch Vale

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Monday, October 29

Things are a bit on the slow side at work, and I have a few vacation days I haven’t used. So with the weather looking good for today, I took advantage of the opportunity and headed up to the Park for a short hike. I figured I’d try something similar to my last hike – that is, a short hike to a familiar destination but try to get a different perspective by gaining a little elevation. So I headed up to the Loch, with the intention of finding a nice rock outcropping with a view of the lake and the valley in which it sits.

I wanted to park at the Glacier Gorge parking lot, so I left a bit earlier than last time. This had the side-effect of missing the worst of rush-hour traffic going into Boulder. Between Boulder and Lyons I was treated to a beautiful sunrise, which is always a nice way to start the day.

There was relatively little traffic on US 36 and now that it’s off-season, I skipped my usual detour by the hospital and actually went through downtown Estes Park. Approaching the RMNP entrance station, I saw a few temporary signs indicating that there was a chance of fog or smoke. I thought it was odd, as the weather was fine and the skies were mostly clear. In Moraine Park their electronic sign told me that the Bear Lake parking lot was already full. I wondered how that could be, given that it was 8:30am on the last Monday of October. How can there possibly be that many people there already? If the Bear Lake lot is already full, there’s no way I’ll get a spot at Glacier Gorge.

When I arrived at Glacier Gorge parking lot there were about eight cars there. Clearly the sign in Moraine Park was in error. Two of the eight cars had just arrived moments before I did. Two guys got out of one of the cars, looked at each other, decided it was too windy and got back in their car. I told them it wouldn’t be windy on the trail, but they weren’t convinced. And, actually, I didn’t think it was very windy at all, compared to what I’ve found there in the past.

Andrews Glacier barely visible

Although I’m quite comfortable deciding what to wear and what to carry on my summer hikes, I’m not that experienced in autumn or winter. I think part of my problem is my lumbar pack. It’s sufficient for my summer day hikes but doesn’t allow me to carry what I might need on a colder weather hike. Today I wore my thermal (light or medium, I forget) underwear, hiking pants, Hawaiian shirt, hoodie, and windbreaker. I had a woolen hat and gloves, and I had my rain jacket as well. I brought my microspikes and gaiters, but ended up leaving the microspikes in the car. I figured I probably wouldn’t need them, but once I got off the trail there might be enough snow I’d want the gaiters. In the end, I didn’t use them.

The day was quite pleasant. On the trail, the wind was not an issue and I didn’t think about it until I got near my destination. There was very little snow on the ground for my entire hike, while the trail had icy stretches that became longer and more common as I gained elevation. The ice was only in the shady bits, starting about halfway up the fire trail. About half way between the Mills Lake trail junction and the Loch I encountered a hiker on his way out. He was trying for Sky Pond but turned around at Timberline Falls. All he had was microspikes and that wasn’t enough for him. He was the only person I met since the parking lot.

Shortly after arriving at the Loch I started looking for a place to start climbing. As it turns out, I started climbing too soon. But it didn’t take long to run into the talus field that’s on the south side of the lake. It runs at an angle. If I’d kept to the trail for a little longer I’d have come across it and had an easier way up.

Picnic view

In planning the hike, I had considered following this talus field all the way up to one of Ed’s glacial knobs. But I found a nice place with a view of the valley that was in the sun and out of the wind. I was perhaps two-thirds of the way up the talus. There was a bit of snow here, but I easily avoided it. I didn’t want to step on some snow only to find out that there’s nothing beneath it but a giant hole.

Interesting grain, a little burned around the edges

In the talus there’s a fair amount of dead wood. Not a lot: it’s a talus field so more or less by definition there aren’t any trees. But there are a few ribs of soil here and there and over the few hundred yards of talus I maneuvered I came across quite a few pieces of deadwood. Each one showed signs of being burned. Some were subtly discolored, just a touch of brown. Others were deeply charred. I assume all these were the result of the Bear Lake Fire of 1900. Burned bits of tree can be found throughout the area, but they’re move obvious here as no trees have grown here in the intervening century.

About two-thirds of the way to the top of the talus field I found a spot with a nice view. As a bonus, it had full sun and was not particularly windy. I fully expected that any place I found that was in the sun and wasn’t surrounded by trees obstructing the vista would be blustery, but my little spot was close to ideal. It may very well be that it wasn’t as windy as it normally is in the cooler months this close to the Divide. But it wasn’t exactly calm. The small clump of trees thirty or forty yards above me sang a bit when the heavier gusts blew by.

Interesting textures

While I let the camera run, and after my picnic, I explored the immediate neighborhood. This meant hopping from rock to rock through the talus. On my way to a spot where I could get a bit of a view of Andrews Glacier, I hopped on a rock that looked to be about three feet on a side. It was a “wobbler”. I’m often concerned that some of the smaller rocks I step on will move, but haven’t had that happen with a boulder this size. Frankly, it kind of spooked me. This one had to be three quarters of a ton or so. I had a quick mental image of it moving a large area of talus; not something I want to be in the middle of. From then on, until I got back to the trail, it seemed like every rock I stepped on moved a bit. I know it was my imagination, but it had me being very careful.

After about an hour of watching the world go by, I packed up and headed back down to the trail. Along the way I came across a large upended stump. Its color matched all the other dead wood nearby, except that it had no obvious signs of burn. What it did have was a rock that the roots had grown around. I took a few pictures of it from various angles; didn’t get one that shows it very well, but so it goes.

Rock encased in wood

Back on the trail I started encountering other hikers. One couple asked if they’d passed Sky Pond. I told them that they hadn’t, and that they weren’t likely to make it past Timberline Falls given that they lacked any kind of traction devices. The next couple I came across said they were properly equipped, and I wished them luck. They looked to be fit, but it seemed to me they wouldn’t be getting up there until fairly late in the day.

The Loch

I briefly considered taking the long way back to the car and spending a few minutes at Alberta Falls. Maybe I was feeling lazy, maybe I preferred the solitude of the fire trail, and in the end took the shortcut. As I hiked out, I shed my layers ending up in shirtsleeves. The forecast high for Denver was in the mid-70’s, while NOAA predicted a high in the mid-40’s for Loch Vale. No doubt, it was warmer than the mid-40’s where I had my picnic.

Leaving the park I saw why they had signs up warning of smoke or fog: they were doing a prescribed burn on the north side of the road, covering the whole distance between the entrance station and the Beaver Meadows visitor center. By now all the excitement seemed to be over: I saw a fair amount of smoke but no flames.

Prescribed burn

Timetable

There Back
Trailhead 08:55 AM 01:22 PM
Mills/Loch Jct 09:35 AM 12:45 PM
The Loch 10:05 AM 12:24 PM
Picnic spot 10:43 AM 11:45 AM

40° 18′ 25″ N, 109° 39′ 37″ W, or Thereabouts

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Things have been a bit on the slow side at work lately. With summer hiking season winding down, I figured I could pick a day with a favorable weather forecast to take some PTO and hit the trails. The weather wonks in the Denver area have been missing their forecasts lately, predicting warmer weather than we’ve actually been getting, so this added a bit of variability. They told me Wednesday would be the warmest day for the foreseeable future so Tuesday afternoon I asked for Wednesday off.

Wednesday, October 3

I planned on a rather short hike, which meant I didn’t need to leave the house before sunrise. But a later start also meant I’d be facing morning rush hour traffic. As I work from home I almost never have to deal with traffic, so getting out in it once in a while is a good reminder as to how spoiled I am.

The Chrysler is getting old, and it sitting outside isn’t helping much. She’s getting senile. I can’t use the automatic headlights because every now and then they start flashing randomly. And the intermittent wiper often gives two or three wipes at a time. And so, when I saw the outside temperature reading at 73° on the approach to Estes I figured that was wrong, but the thermometer doesn’t yet seem to be demented. It did cool back down dramatically as I got closer to the Park.

On the way through town I spotted what I thought of as a clear-sky rainbow. I know that you don’t get rainbows without rain, but this one looked to be situated well away from any clouds. It was clear above, and the only clouds in sight were draped across the Continental Divide. Well, “socked in” more adequately describes it. Nothing above about 11,000′ was visible.

I was a bit surprised by how many people were in the park, given that it’s a weekday. The Bear Lake parking lot wasn’t yet full (but it was full when I left a bit after 1:00pm). This time of year I expect mostly locals, but there were still quite a few cars with Illinois, Minnesota, Texas, and California plates.

When I got out of the car it wasn’t particularly chilly, but it was (surprise, surprise!) fairly windy. By now I treat “windy” as the default state of things along the Divide, unless it’s mid-Summer, and sometimes even then. I wasn’t going very far, and I wasn’t exactly going to visit a lake; my intention was to spend my time surrounded by trees, so I didn’t let the wind bother me. But I didn’t put too much thought into exactly where those trees would be. My destination was the ridge that separates Dream Lake from Lake Haiyaha.

I took the shortcut from Bear Lake to Nymph Lake not so much to shorten the walk as to avoid the crowds. Rather than hustle up the Haiyaha trail, I followed the trail the few yards to the shore of Dream Lake. The clouds were impenetrable over the divide but the fierce winds that carried them east also tore them apart. To the east the skies were clear, and in the zone in between, the sun was able to play “now you see me, now you don’t” with the lakes. A few minutes patience allowed me a view of a sunny Dream Lake with clouds above.

After another quick pause to take in the views to the east, I left the trail before crossing Haiyaha’s outlet stream. There’s a bit of a trail here that gets used by the rock climbers that lasts until you reach talus. Once in the rocks I started heading uphill. It’s not too steep and there isn’t much to hinder progress – little deadfall and no rock outcroppings – and found myself at the top of the ridge in no time.

I sat up there for about an hour, letting the cameras run. I tried to stay out of the wind, but here at 10,472′ (according to GPS) it was a challenge. I found a place that wasn’t too bad. I kept an eye on the lake. For the last year or a bit more it has a distinctly glacial color to it. There was a slide a while back up the canyon and the snowmelt that passes over and through the slide has carried some sediment to the lake that gives it a turquoise color when viewed from above in sunlight. But every time the sun illuminated the lake it was over before I could capture that nice color. That just gives me an excuse to revisit this spot next summer, even though the color is already fading.

I made it back to the car pretty early so I decided to make a stop at Sprague Lake. I can’t help but notice that it hasn’t been on my list of lakes I’ve visited. Thinking about that oversight it occurs to me that I certainly haven’t been there in at least thirty years. That makes me wonder if I’ve ever actually been there. I’ve got to believe we were there as a family when I was a kid. Right? How can I have spent so much time in the Park, driven by the place hundreds of times, and never been there?

I took my time at Sprague. I let the camera run again for another half hour or so. The wind was not any less here than on the ridge above Haiyaha, particularly on the windward side. I was surprised the wind didn’t jostle my camera, as it was enough to kick up spray from the lake’s surface and unbalance the unwary pedestrian. The clouds were no longer obscuring the peaks but it wasn’t clearing up. If anything, they looked more threatening. Until you turned around and faced east, where it remained sunny.

The weather forecast turned out to be spot on. At roughly 3:30 I was mired in Boulder’s afternoon rush hour in balmy 83° sunshine.

I was hoping for better results on the time lapse. The Sprague Lake portion came out fine, with the possible exception of some spray hitting the lens. But the ridgetop sections don’t show any of the details of the clouds. The GoPro is just too wide-angle, and with the auto exposure it doesn’t handle changing light well at all. I haven’t been using the SLR since the cheap little tripod I was using broke. I guess I need to find a new tripod.