Tag Archives: RMNP

Dutch Town 2

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Tuesday, August 30

I awoke a bit after sunrise after a somewhat chilly night to clear blue skies. It looked to be another marvelous day in the Park.

The first thing I noticed was that my trek poles, which I had leaned up against a long, downed tree, had been knocked over. Maybe the deer (or whatever) that passed through last night knocked them over. On closer inspection, though, the grips of both poles had been munched on and the straps had been eaten completely. Did that passing deer eat my poles?

A few minutes later, we were greeted by a Park Service trail crew. They were here to make a few improvements to the campsite. The ranger in charge asked to see our permit while the crew stowed their shovels and axes not far from where Gordon and I put our bear canisters overnight.

Having established our right to be here, I started asking the ranger questions. How did you get here so early? “We drove along the Ditch from Poudre cabin, so we had a short hike.” What creature did this skull belong to? “I don’t know. Not an ungulate.” What do you suppose ate my trek poles? “Probably a marmot. They want the salt from your sweat.” Did this campsite use to be over there beyond the preservation area sign? “Yes. It was threatened by dead trees so we moved it here.”

Last evening I spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out what percentage of trees in the area have succumbed to pine beetles. After much study, it became clear to me that all the dead trees were the largest trees. I’d guess nine out of ten of the largest quartile or quintile of trees were dead but very few of the medium and small trees were. I couldn’t help but wonder if all beetle-kill was this way and I just never noticed it before, or if things were different in this area. So I asked the ranger.

While I was correct that these trees had been killed by beetles, they were from the spruce beetle, which is a cousin of the pine beetle. Spruce beetles go after the big trees first, those with trunk diameters greater than ten inches. The victims in this area have been dead for a while – none are brown, they’re all gray.

Before they worked on our campsite, they headed up to Lake of the Clouds. They said it would take them about an hour to get there from here, which is only a bit less than I’d guessed it might take us. They left and we finished our breakfasts and got ready for our hike.

I grabbed my day pack, which is the top part of my backpack. It has a compartment you unzip to reveal the shoulder straps for the day pack. I’d stored this in the atrium of my tent (the space between the tent and the rain cover). It sat all night about six inches from my head, where the rustling noises were last night. It turns out my marmot friend didn’t just dine on my trek poles but worked my day pack over pretty well. Each shoulder strap was half eaten through and much of the fabric at the top was thoroughly chewed up. I wasn’t hearing the breeze rustle my tent, I was hearing a rodent wrecking my stuff. I hope that marmot got a really bad case of diarrhea.

Luckily, it was still intact enough to get me through the day. I hoped. As long as I didn’t put too much weight in the pack.

Anyhow, lunch and water and GoPro in the mangled pack, using my now strapless and heavily gnawed trek poles, we headed up the trail to Lake of the Clouds.

The trail ends well before the lake, where it exits the forest and dumps the hiker on the shore of a sea of talus. To the south, to the north, and to the west, nothing but talus. I vaguely recall writing on this blog some time ago about a large amount of talus. Wherever that was, there is more talus here. (It isn’t only here – our campsite has a view of the north slope of Howard Mountain. It’s all talus. Except for some that looks like scree.)

The first thing I did, once we had the route to the lake in view, was to search for the work party. I found them, but not where I expected them to be. When I was here on my failed day-hike, I thought that if I hadn’t made my 45-minute wrong turn I’d have made it to the lake. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have made it because I surely wouldn’t have gone the correct way.

We worked our way across the talus between the end of the trail and the base of the slope we’d have to climb. That slope is talus. We worked our way up between a couple of growths of willow and over to a grassy ramp. Once on the ramp, the route of cairns was pretty easy to follow. There may be cairns in the talus we had to cross, but finding a cairn in a talus field is like finding a pile of rocks in a bigger pile of rocks.

The ramp is broken in the middle by another section of talus. Imagine that. Back on the ramp, following the cairns, we crossed the lake’s outlet stream and arrived atop the bench that holds the lake. It took us an hour and twenty minutes to get here from camp.

The slopes of Howard Mountain and Mount Cirrus rise steeply 1400′ above the lake. You guessed it: talus everywhere. The rocks these mountains are made of aren’t the giant granite slabs you see above Black Lake, for example. The rocks on Howard and Cirrus are fractured and full of cracks running in all directions. The freeze-thaw cycle undoubtedly keeps a significant amount of rock falling, endlessly adding to the piles of talus.

As is my wont, I chatted a bit with the members of the work crew. They were celebrating the end of the season (even though they’ll be working another month). The ranger in charge told me she has been doing this for eighteen years. She’s been just about everywhere in the Park but doesn’t visit very many summits. One of the guys will turn 30 in a couple of weeks. He decided that he’d take a dip in 30 lakes by then. Today he got his 23rd and he’s confident that he’ll get the remaining seven without too much difficulty. One day last week, he got six in one day: The Loch, Mills, Jewel, Black, Blue, and Green.

Gordon set off to circumnavigate the lake while I surveyed my surroundings. Looking out over the valley below, my metaphor likening the talus to a sea couldn’t be more apt. This sea of rock is arranged in what looks like storm-tossed waves. The troughs of the waves are lighter in color than the tops due to weathering.

I was surprised the lake was so green. Fluorescent green, nearly.

We stayed at the lake for a bit more than two hours. On the way down, we lost our chain of cairns a couple of times, forcing us to backtrack. And when we went looking for the terminus of the trail, we found we’d gone much too far to the north. Rather than backtracking across the talus, we worked our way back to the forest and followed a game trail back to the main trail.

  • Use the Grassy Ramp (photo from 2013)
  • Working our way up
  • A Cloud, Never Summer Peak, and Gordon
  • Lake of the Clouds
  • Lake of the Clouds
  • Lake of the Clouds
  • North Specimen, Specimen Mountian, South Specimen
  • A Sea of Talus
  • Campsite improvement: before
  • Campsite improvement: after
  • Today’s Beer

When we arrived at our campsite, the work crew had already left. They cut a long section out of the tree trunk I’d had my poles leaning on overnight. This expanded the area where one might want to pitch a tent. As I said earlier, I saw an axe and shovels. But they must have had a power saw and something to shred the tree trunk. To level the ground, they didn’t move any dirt around, they just spread a thick layer of shredded tree trunk. It looked like it might be comfy, but I wonder how well it’ll hold tent spikes and suspect it’ll retain a fair amount of water after a rain.

At ten minutes to four, I thought we were going to get a visitor. Pretty much wherever we sat at the campsite, we could see the main trail. I saw a lone hiker come up to the sign, look up at the campsite, then check his map. He had a full backpack – much more than he’d need for a day hike. My first thought was that maybe he had a permit for this site but showed up a day early. But after a short pause, he continued up the trail. If he was a day hiker, he was pretty late. As it takes more than an hour to reach the lake, he’d be looking at passing our site no sooner than 6 pm. We never did see him again, so my guess is he camped at Lake of the Clouds without a permit. I wonder how often that sort of thing happens.

When it came time to bed in for the night, I made sure to keep wearing my headlamp. If that pesky marmot made a return visit, I wanted to be able to scare him away without rummaging around for my light.

Sure enough, sometime around midnight, I heard a rustling noise. I turned the lamp on and found myself eyeball to beady little eyeball with… a squirrel! The little bastard was about four inches away from my face. The light didn’t scare him off – I had to hiss at him. We repeated this little ritual three or four more times before he finally gave up.

I take back all the bad things I was thinking about marmots.

Dutch Town 1

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Foster tells us that Lake of the Clouds is the “most highly visited destination in the Never Summer Mountains”. I don’t doubt her, but if it’s true it tells me just how few people visit any destination in the Never Summer Mountains. (She certainly includes only the mountain destinations and not those in the valley, like Lulu City.)

I tried to reach Lake of the Clouds quite a while ago as a day hike. I wasted some time with a navigation error and made it only to where the trail ends on the map. Since then, I’ve suspected it was out of my day hike range, and decided to give it the two-night treatment: hike to the campsite on day one, hit the lake (or lakes) on day two, and hike out on day three.

The trail is accessed from the Colorado River trailhead. I’ve never seen that lot full, so we could pick our own departure time without worrying about getting a place to park.

Monday, August 29

We had a leisurely 7 am departure from my house, traffic wasn’t horrible, and we put boots on the trail at 9:20.

The first section of trail goes due north from the parking lot for half a mile to a trail junction. Many hikers won’t go any farther than here, or hereabouts. There’s a bridge over the Colorado river a few yards from the junction. Most of those who don’t stop here will continue on toward Lulu City. To reach Lake of the Clouds (or our campsite, Dutch Town), you make the left turn and take the route less traveled.

After crossing the valley, the trail turns south to climb the lower flank of Red Mountain. The trail traverses a fairly steep slope and by the time it has gained about four hundred feet, the hiker is presented with a view of the trailhead parking lot. It surprises me how often a trail gains four hundred feet from a valley floor up to a bench. That happens here, and although there are no lakes on this bench, there are some wetlands.

Having gone a very short distance south of our starting point, the trail turns around and heads generally north until it comes out on the service road for the Grand Ditch. The Grand Ditch is a water diversion project that is capable of taking all the water on the east side of the Never Summer Range and putting it into Long Draw Reservoir, which feeds the Cache la Poudre River.

The trail continues along the ditch for nearly two miles. I’d say that there’s more water flowing in it than in the Colorado River just below us. The ditch is flowing opposite to the river, but we’re at about the midpoint of the ditch, so it’s not a bad approximation that where we crossed the river, there should be more than twice as much water in it. It’s indicative of the abuse the Colorado River gets that, in its first 15 or 20 miles, more than half its water has been rerouted.

From the start of the hike to a fair piece northward along the Ditch, traffic noise from Trail Ridge Road has been a constant companion. As we approach the end of our flat and level stroll on the service road, we’re about a mile north of the highway and turning west. The road noise fades away. Now we can easily hear the jet airliners passing overhead. The westbound ones are a bit north of us, but the eastbound fly directly overhead.

At the Lake of the Clouds trail junction with the Grand Ditch, there’s a sign that indicates Dutch Town is 1.3 miles distant, and Hitchens Gulch is .8 miles. I never did see any sign for the Hitchens Gulch campsite, going or coming, so I suspect it’s no longer in use. I also suspect the miles are inflated a bit. I reckon it’s more like .7 to Dutch Town. It took us thirty minutes to get from the Ditch to the campsite. That’s a five-hundred-foot gain, so I think 1.4 miles per hour is much more reasonable than the 2.6 miles per hour required by the sign.

It took us three hours of hiking to make the trip. Add some time for our break at the base of the Lake of the Clouds trail. Since we crossed the Colorado River, we had encountered only three other people. They had camped at Valley View, very close to where the trail first reached the Ditch. There was nobody at our site, which surprised me. If I could have gotten a Sunday/Monday instead of our Monday/Tuesday, I would have. Either the previous occupants of Dutch Town made it to the trailhead before we left, or they hiked to another campsite. Or, possibly, they canceled. No matter.

  • The Mighty Colorado River
  • At the Ditch
  • Mystery Skull
  • Today’s beer

Some previous occupant of the campsite left us a present: a somewhat chewed-up skull. I have no idea what sort of creature it belonged to. It’s just the skull; no mandible, and it’s not obvious where the mandible would attach. The brain would be a bit smaller than my fist.

I’ll admit that I’m a bit spoiled backpacking in the Park, given the generally outstanding trails and campsites. That said, I’ve only camped in about half a dozen established campsites in the Park. This one is a bit different than the others I’ve been to. First, it’s very close to the trail and my tent is clearly visible from the trail even before reaching the sign and spur trail. Second, it’s not ideal for water. Sitting at the campsite, the stream is audible. But what can be heard is water flowing under some talus. Just upstream, the stream is very wide, very shallow, and flows slowly. Here, the streambed is a soft mud that is easily disturbed. I use a SteriPen rather than a filter and it was impossible to get any water without a bit of sediment. It is necessary to go quite a way upstream to avoid the sediment.

A few yards from the level spots at the site, there’s a sign saying “Restoration Area: Stay Off”. I believe the site was located by this sign in years past. Here, tents wouldn’t be visible from the trail. The difference in location wouldn’t have made much difference as to water, though.

On my last backpacking trip, I brought the critter cam. The only critter it spotted was me. I probably should bring it every trip, but I figured I didn’t want to carry the extra weight. I should have brought it.

At about 10:30 I was awakened by something moving through the campsite. It sounded like a large quadruped. I’ve had moose go past my tent. It wasn’t exactly a quiet animal. This one was quiet, so I guessed it was either an elk or a deer. It didn’t linger and was quickly out of earshot.

Later, I heard my tent rustling. It sounded like the rain cover was being disturbed by a slight breeze. I didn’t give it much thought at the time. But things are not always what they seem.

Hike Segment Data

StartEndDistance (Miles)Slope (Ft/Mile)Elapsed TimeMiles per Hour
TrailheadRed Mtn trail jct0.512:122.5
Red Mtn trail jctGrand Ditch2.84251:331.8
Grand DitchLake of the Clouds trail jct1.9-8:402.9
Lake of the Clouds trail jctCampsite0.7714:301.4
TrailheadCampsite5.92862:552.0
Distance and Slope are approximate

Lulu City

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For several years, I’ve been telling people that I try to spend between twelve and eighteen days each year in the Park. I’ll admit that what I tell people may sometimes be an exaggeration, but I think I’m safe in saying that I’ve averaged more than a dozen days a year since 2008. If I pull a number out of the hat for visits prior to 2008, I might have spent another eighty days total. That means I’ve spent a total of over 260 days wandering around the Park. And yet, somehow, I’ve never been to Lulu City, one of the most popular hikes on the west side of the Park.

Ghost Town

Before seeing the place, I might have called it a ghost town.

I tend to spend a lot of time planning my little jaunts, and this one was no different. Usually, my research is reading a few paragraphs of Foster’s guide, then pulling up the area on CalTopo maps. My habit is to leave this browser window open for days or weeks, looking at it a couple of times a day. For Lulu City, though, I dug a bit deeper.

I have a giant book called Ghost Towns of the West that was published back in 1971. In the introduction, the authors define a ghost town. They say, “Most of the towns described and pictured in this book are ‘dead’ ghosts, but some still have life, though nothing to compare with the lusty vigor they enjoyed in their heyday.” Their chapter for Colorado is 112 pages. There’s no entry for Lulu City, but there are entries for Black Hawk, Breckenridge, Buena Vista, Central City, Creede, Crested Butte, Fairplay, Georgetown, Leadville, Silverton, and Telluride, among other places I’d never have considered “ghost towns”. I find this unsatisfying.

Digging deeper, I managed to find a paper written in 1980 that covers Lulu City and Dutchtown. I have a backcountry permit to stay at the Dutchtown campsite in August, so I’ll leave that part of the story for later.

What’s a Park?

The first chapter of this paper (authored by Susan Baldwin) gives a history of Middle Park. Here I will confess that, having lived in Colorado for more than four decades, and having heard the name “Middle Park”, I never knew where it was.

In this context, a park is a large upland valley. The word comes from the French word “parc”, which means “enclosure”. The principal ones are North Park (which was originally called “New Park”), Middle Park (originally “Old Park”), South Park, and the San Luis Valley. I’m quite familiar with North, South, and San Luis. These are large basins, lie at relatively high altitudes, and are miles across in all directions. “Basin” is a fitting term, in my opinion. I have never really thought of North Park or South Park or the San Luis Valley as valleys. They’re all more or less oval shapes, have flat bottoms, and lack trees.

The topography of Middle Park differs markedly from that of North and South Parks making it isolated and relatively inaccessible. Middle Park isn’t oval, but Y-shaped. The southern entrance to Middle Park is Berthoud Pass. In the west, it stretches to Kremmling. And the northern arm is the valley where you will find the headwaters of the Colorado River. That is, where you’ll find Lulu City and Dutchtown.

Who Built Lulu City?

Because Middle Park was relatively difficult to reach, there’s not a long history of the place. The northern arm of the Park was a fertile hunting ground for the Northern Utes. Baldwin says “The streams were filled with fish, and game was abundant with elk, deer, mountain sheep, antelope, buffalo, all varieties of bear including grizzlies, grouse, sage hens, ducks, geese, and turkeys making Middle Park the best hunting ground in Colorado.” The Utes weren’t the only Indians aware of this and they had frequent conflicts with the Arapahos, Sioux, Crow, and Blackfoot Indians who also vied with the Utes for use of the region.

It wasn’t until after gold was found in Cripple Creek and Central City that whites were attracted to the place. Fremont wandered through the place in 1844, and Powell visited in 1868 (when he submitted Longs Peak), and there were a few other early visitors. But these were visitors. Whites didn’t settle here in any numbers until the 1870s.

Most of these early settlers were looking for gold. A number of mines were dug here on both sides of the Colorado River (originally called the Grand River; thus the name of Grand County and Grand Lake). There were enough people in the vicinity to warrant building towns, and thus Grand Lake and Lulu City were born, both in 1879.

Why is Lulu City a ghost town but not Grand Lake? Grand Lake was built more as a place to supply miners while Lulu was where the mines were. The basic problem was that the mines in the area supplied only low-grade ore. Access to Lulu was limited to wagon and horseback, and that was restricted by the harsh winters. Taking this low-grade ore out was difficult, and there wasn’t enough financial incentive to build a smelter at Lulu.

Lulu did have a sawmill, without which a town couldn’t be built. But that was about the extent of local industry. The plat of Lulu City (laid out by H.Y. Harding, Deputy U.S Surveyor, in early June of 1880) was conceived on an ambitious scale and encompassed 160 acres of land and was situated along the North Fork of the Grand River. Its east-west streets were numbered from 1st to 19th and those running north-south were given the names Lead Mountain, Trout, Riverside, and Howard.

Towns didn’t just spring up out of thin air. Generally, the first step was to make a company. In this case, it was the Middle Park and Grand River Mining and Land Improvement Company, created by a group of Fort Collins residents. They had an ambitious plan. According to the Fort Collins Courier, they “were supplied with tools and building materials and under the direction of Mr. Harris, an experienced mechanic, some eight or ten buildings will be put up before they return. A hotel, store, saloon, blacksmith shop, and various other business enterprises will be opened between now and mid-June. Steps are being taken to establish mail route from Fort Collins to Lulu City and other points in Middle and North Park. Management of the company is in the hands of competent and responsible people and no pains nor expense have been spared in acquiring perfect title to its property.”

A bustling place in the summers, almost no one stayed over the winter. The one road in was impassable until mid-June. The mines were for the most part deserted by late 1883 as was Lulu City. Postal service was discontinued on November 26, 1883, and no elections were held there that year. In December 1883 it was noted that “Lulu is practically dead for the winter, the bears having run everyone out of there. J.R. Godsmark, county judge elect, will winter at the Lake and as he has been the mainstay of Lulu, it will leave that place without a head.”

Much anxiety is felt for the safety of the mines at Lulu. Since the departure of Judge Godsmark and some more of the old timers, the bears and mountain lions have taken possession of the boys’ houses and old, discarded overalls and gumboots, and are running municipal government of their own, to wit; using all their efforts to restore Lulu to its primeval status. But wait until Judge returns and assumes the judicial ermine, then their rule will soon end. Lulu has bright future in store for her the coming summer.

Georgetown Colorado Miner, January 5, 1884

The bright future never happened. Lulu City was history before the end of 1884. The low grade of the ore, the lack of a smelter, and the harsh winters did the place in. There was never a school, never a church, and most of the buildings were tents. Joseph E. Shipler was one of the founders, and he was about the last to leave. Remnants of his cabin still stand, and he was greeting visitors as late as 1912, when Rocky Mountain National Park was founded.

Thursday, June 23

I left the house promptly at 6am. For these west side hikes, I generally take Berthoud pass in the morning and Trail Ridge Road in the afternoon, but today I decided to do TRR in both directions. This probably cost me nearly half an hour, but the hike is a short one so an 8:30 start is not a big deal. This summer, timed-entry passes are required at all times for the Bear Lake corridor, but only after 9am for the remainder of the Park. I arrived at the Beaver Meadows entrance station shortly after 7am. Only one gate was open and I waited in line for twenty minutes.

The trail parallels the Colorado River. It runs a few feet of elevation above the valley floor. It has to: much of the valley floor is marshy grassland. Foster says it’s 3.5 miles from the trailhead to Lulu, with a 320′ elevation gain. The sign on the trail has the distance at 3.7 miles. The 320′ is net gain, so you really climb a bit more than 400′ as the spur trail to Lulu is after the main trail has started rising from the valley. This little spur, about two-tenths of a mile, is easily the steepest section of the entire trail.

There’s one area where a “temporary” trail makes a detour. High water has washed away part of the trail. Rangers have marked the detour with little flags on each end of the detour, but in the middle the trail gets indistinct and several routes are possible, including one that I took which had a steep, wet, slippery section.

Foster lists this hike as “family-friendly”. I would agree with this, but the short detour might make it less friendly for little kids. As well, there are a number of downed trees that block the trail. Hopefully, these will be rectified this summer.

Shipler’s cabin ruins are somewhere along the trail. I never did see the place. I came across a little spur off the main trail. I went down this a few yards on my way up in the morning but gave up on it immediately. By the time I made it back here on the way back, I was convinced that Shipler’s cabin was down this trail. I was wrong.

There are a few places where the trail enters grassy meadows that are sufficiently high above the valley to not be marshes. Were I looking for a place to build a cabin in 1880 or so, many of these would have been possibilities.

  • Never Summer Peak
  • Mine Tailings
  • Howard Mtn
  • Howard Mtn
  • Never Summer Peak
  • Spot the Moose
  • Standing in the middle of the Colorado River
  • My Marmot Friend

Earlier, I said that this is one of the more popular hikes on the west side of the Park. I have no data to support this. And, in fact, on the hike up to Lulu, I only encountered two other hikers. But on arrival at Lulu, I came across a group of about fifteen guys, all sitting in a circle and telling stories. I stayed there for an hour. Another group of five or six arrived, along with a random selection of couples and solo hikers. On the way out, I passed a stream of hikers surpassed only by what you’d encounter between Bear Lake and Emerald Lake.

The location of Lulu is quite nice. It has a nice view (but not a spectacular one), and the river meanders a bit in a stony bed a few times wider than the stream itself. Here, we’re only about two miles from the headwaters and even in late June with the water running fairly high, it’s hard to imagine this river carving the Grand Canyon (there’s the old name again!). If I’d brought my trek poles with me, I’m sure I could have forded the river without taking my boots off and still had dry feet.

It took me only an hour and a half to get to Lulu, so it was a little early for me to have lunch. I thought I’d stop at Shipler’s cabin for my picnic, but as I mentioned above, that didn’t exactly work out. I found a nice rock with a view of a bend in the river.

On the hike out, I came across the most mellow marmot I’ve ever seen. He was on a rock right next to the trail when I found him. I didn’t see him until I was within a few feet of him. I thought he was unaware of my presence, but he could clearly hear the shutter of my camera. He got off his rock to eat some flowers right on the trail. Hikers coming from the other direction didn’t bother him either: he pretty much looked at me, turned his back on me, and walked right up to the other hikers. There, he ate some more flowers before finally leaving the trail and letting us all proceed.

I made it back to the car shortly after 1pm, for a round-trip time of just over four hours. As that included an hour at Lulu and a lunch break on the way back, it’s a pretty easy hike.

Two Rivers Lake

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Sunday, March 19

I talked Chad into hiking with me. Somehow, two weeks in a row. Last week we took the short hike to Emerald Lake. It snowed the whole time. I don’t know if it technically qualifies as a blizzard, but it was snowing and the wind was blowing. I told him it was some of the most dramatic scenery around. But we couldn’t see any of it.

After many months without hiking, followed by an unsatisfactory hike, I felt I had to do it again. So I asked Chad if he wanted to do another hike, a little longer this time, and hopefully better weather. He didn’t accept right away. Perhaps he finally agreed in spite of his better judgement.

It was a beautiful day, with a forecast high in Denver of over 80. One of the great things about hiking in the Park is that you can get away from the summer heat. It’s only March and it’s a bit distressing that I’m already looking to escape the heat. A March hike along the divide is one way to do it.

Before we hit the trail I warned Chad to be careful whose footsteps he follows. We’d be crossing a couple of open spaces where the footprints get blown away and the “beaten path” might be hard to find. And we need to stay on the beaten path because we’re wearing micro spikes rather than snowshoes. If we get off the path we could be postholing.

When we got to the first of these open areas we met a group of four hikers heading back to Bear Lake. They’d built an igloo and camped nearby. We didn’t find it until we were on the way back; must have walked right by it somehow. It was a big one – sleeps four!

We found ourselves on a fairly well-traveled path, but as we got closer to the lake I began to dislike it. We were following tracks that seemed to take a more difficult route than was necessary. We were climbing too far up Joe Mills Mountain for my taste. Before long we met another couple of hikers on their way back. These two said they visit Lake Helene quite often in the summer, even climbing up the canyon above it to a small unnamed pond beneath Notchtop.

Last year when I hiked here, everybody I ran into thought Two Rivers Lake was Odessa Lake. These two, who have visited here often in summer, told us that Helene was real close and that we’d already passed Two Rivers. They were wrong. What they thought was Helene was actually Two Rivers. It’s funny how a little snow can change the terrain.

Once at the lake, we found a spot out of the wind and settled down for a picnic. Actually, it was more standing around than settling down as all the snow-free rocks that would make nice seats were in the teeth of the strong wind. We opted for shelter in the trees, where there were no good places to sit. We stayed nearly an hour.

We followed a different set of footprints on the way back. On one of the steeper open slopes we spotted below us the route we followed in the morning. Then we managed to get off the tracks we were now following. I decided we were too high up the hillside and the tracks we really wanted to follow were below us. So I headed off into virgin snow.

I knew our morning route was below us but we were descending a bit more than I wanted to, so I decided to contour along the slope. With these warm, bright days and cold nights the snow was pretty crusty. Had to tread carefully, though, as I was often on the verge of breaking that crust and stepping crotch deep into the snow. A few minutes later we came across the beaten path again.

This morning when I told Chad he’d have to be careful whose footsteps he followed, I’m pretty sure he didn’t think I was warning him about me.

Shelf Lake, Solitude Lake

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Saturday, July 27

I killed Victor.

We hiked to Shelf Lake and Solitude Lake. I don’t know why I have so much trouble finding where we leave the Black Lake trail. When I hiked to Blue Lake this spring I looked for the spot and missed it. I missed it again this time. We went a bit too far up the trail. We headed across a marshy meadow and made an easy crossing of Glacier Creek and headed upslope.

I heard water to our right and knew we needed to be on the other side of the stream so we worked our way over, passing through some nasty deadfall at one point. When I saw the stream, I also saw the trail and knew we were finally in the right place. I don’t think Victor was much of a fan of our little bushwhacking expedition.

We had just started a kilometer section of trail that climbs eight hundred feet. And it’s not really a trail and there are a few places where you need to use your hands. Earlier in the day Victor had joked about not wanting to do the Bataan Death March and here I am leading him off-trail and then up just about the most grueling kilometer of hiking I could have picked.

Here we ran into some other hikers. Two young guys came up behind us and passed us like we were standing still. We may have been standing still. Closer to the top we chatted with a couple coming down. They’d been up there since Thursday, said they’d had a couple cold nights.

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Shelf Lake

Above the trees it was quite blustery. The sun was shining brightly but it was cool, and the wind was cold. We had lunch at Solitude, trying to take shelter on the lee side of a boulder along the water’s edge. We needed a bigger boulder.

Even though I didn’t expect we’d want to sit there very long, I attempted to set up the GoPro for a time lapse. There wasn’t much cloud action but you never know how things will turn out. In this case, not at all. I couldn’t get the camera to work in multi-shot mode. It kept emitting a series of beeps, showing a message that said “camera busy.” So no time lapse.

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Solitude Lake

By the time we got back to the trailhead, Victor could hardly walk. He may never want to hike with me again, but at least he had a memorable day 🙂

Blue Lake

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Saturday, June 18

Black Lake is one of the most spectacular places in RMNP. I came to that belief very early in my exploration of the Park and I continue to feel this way having visited over half the named lakes in the Park. Only now I expand upon that thought: the upper part of Glacier Gorge, everything above the outlet of Black Lake, is simply incredible.

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Black Lake

When the Rocky Mountains were named, is was for places like this. Standing on the shores of any of the lakes in the area – Black, Blue, Green, “Italy”, Frozen – you are surrounded on three sides by vertical and nearly vertical slabs of solid rock, hundreds of feet high. The western flank of Longs, Keyboard of the Winds, Pagoda, The Spearhead, McHenrys, and Arrowhead all tower overhead; desolate, massive, beautiful.

I didn’t encounter much wildlife on this hike. Near the end of the boardwalk section just above Mills Lake I came across two elk – a cow and her calf – just ahead of me on the trail.

At the little waterfall, where the outlet of Blue Lake crosses the trail to Black Lake, I paused to install the microspikes. Quite a few hikers were on the trail, but only a few were properly equipped. I wouldn’t have gone much farther than here without the spikes, but I’m an admitted lightweight. In any case, the hike was a snow hike pretty much all the way from here to my destination. Only the higher reaches above Black Lake were snow free; above treeline and well bathed in sunshine.

Black Lake is still half frozen over. Climbing the trail along the main inlet to the lake it’s interesting to see how the snow clings to the steep walls of rock. Occasionally, large slabs of snow break off, slide down the rock to the steep snow and eventually come to rest in the meadow below.

The entire area is alive with flowing water. A ribbon of water, perhaps forty feet wide, pours down the sheer rock below McHenrys. Much of the water running to the valley below is heard but still unseen – flowing beneath the snow.

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Blue Lake

The weather today was unbeatable. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky all day. I’d say it was calm, but that’s not quite true. There was only just enough of a breeze to prevent the surface of the lake being a perfect mirror. Normally, with it this calm, the flying insects will be a nuisance but today there was no problem with mosquitoes or flies.

Increasingly, over the last few years, I’ve felt that I need to go farther from the trailhead, farther off the trail, to find any solitude. That certainly wasn’t the case today. I take the “Fire” trail to bypass Alberta Falls and save some distance. As this trail isn’t on maps or signs I almost never run into other hikers. And today I didn’t meet anybody above Black Lake until I was on my way down. There I met a group of four who were asking if there is a lake above us. “There are four lakes. But you won’t find any of them without a map.” They elected to stop where they were and enjoy the view.

Timings Up Down
Trailhead 08:38 AM 03:41 PM
Fire trail Jct 08:48 AM 03:30 PM
Mills/Loch Jct 09:13 AM 03:02 PM
Mills Lake 09:28 AM 02:45 PM
Black Lake 10:48 AM 01:17 PM
Blue Lake 11:35 AM 12:25 PM

Two Rivers Lake

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Sunday, June 5

For the first hike of the year, my latest first hike in eight years, I headed toward Lake Helene. Either Helene or Two Rivers. I figured this would be an unremarkable hike. This is the third or fourth year in a row I’ve hiked this way at this time of year. Familiar territory and conditions.

It’s a short hike, probably the shortest I’ll take all year. That meant I could have a leisurely morning and didn’t need to arrive at the Bear Lake parking lot until about 9:30. I arrived pretty much on schedule to a nearly full lot. I parked in the third or fourth spot from the bottom of the lot. I was on the trail by 9:45.

My first encounter with other hikers was a bit of foreshadowing. Four young women were at the trail sign at the start of the Flattop/Odessa trail. Their discussion sounded a bit confused. I asked if they had things figured out. They didn’t. They were looking to go to Nymph Lake. I showed them Nymph on the map and told them how to get there, as that trail wasn’t on this map. They had no idea where they were and couldn’t make sense of the map.

Shortly after ten I arrived at the Flattop-Odessa trail junction. I stopped and put the spikes on. There was more snow here than any of the last few springs. About the only snowless patch from the junction on up is at a rock outcropping with a view of Bierstadt. Not far past that there’s a meadow. On winter hikes I’ve sometimes had trouble finding the route – the blowing snow erases most of the footprints. Plenty of steps to follow today, and here’s where we deviated from the summer route.

The summer trail crosses over to the flank of Joe Mills Mountain but the snow trail stayed on Flattop side. I soon caught up to three hikers: mom, college aged daughter, junior high son. Mom was in sneakers, none had spikes.

The daughter told me, “We’re going almost to Odessa. I was there yesterday and dropped something. We’re going to look for it.”

“You don’t have spikes? You made it to Odessa? I won’t go to Odessa this time of year even with spikes. Too steep.”

She confirmed that she’d been to Odessa.

A short while later I met a young couple coming down the trail. They didn’t have spikes and also said they made it to Odessa. The next hikers, two guys, said they wanted to go to Odessa but when they got to an overlook decided “no way.” They didn’t have spikes, either.

Continuing to follow the steps in the snow I soon arrived at the outlet of Two Rivers Lake. The trail stopped here in the rocks that will probably be under water in a matter of days. A few skiers had traversed the slope on the south side of the lake, and there were a couple sets of footprints, but this was the end of the line.

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It finally clicked – all those people who said they went to Odessa had no idea that they’d only been to Two Rivers. No official trails go to Two Rivers or Helene; they’re not on any signs. The only lake on any of the signs they’d seen was Odessa. Of course they thought they were at Odessa. Only about a third of the people I’d met had the slightest idea where they really were.

I managed to take only a handful of photos with the SLR before the battery died. I was disappointed, but not surprised. It’s been a while since I used the camera. It was breakfast before I thought to charge the batteries. I only charged one battery for a short time. But it’s not like I don’t already have pictures of place, no big deal.

I found a nice log to sit on, got comfortable, tucked into lunch, and proceeded to watch the world go by. Before long, a small bird arrived on a branch very nearby. Small, gray with a white head and black collar. Black stripes on the eyes, not horizontal like a raccoon but vertical. I don’t know my birds; I think this was a White-throated Sparrow. She sat on this limb and fluffed and preened. Spread our her feathers, rearranged a few with her beak. Birds never pose that nicely for me when I have a working camera. She flew off after a while but did come back later. She spent a lot of time on the ground looking for food.

Also notable was the mated pair of ducks that were feeding in the shallows. They motored past me to the outlet where they ran their beaks back and forth under the surface and occasionally went deep, putting their butts up in the air. They were the only two ducks at the lake.They eventually worked their way back past me, occasionally bobbing their tails up.

I stayed at the lake for forty minutes, had the place all to myself. The weather was great, bright sunshine, scattered clouds, calm. As the clouds moved eastward they darkened a bit, incipient scattered showers.

When I started back, I found it easy to exactly retrace my steps. I saw no other hiker using spikes, so my prints were obvious. That lasted until I met a couple hiking up. They were “just going to the lake”, Odessa presumably. Between the two of them, they only obscured about a third of my footprints. Then I met the hikers who had spikes.

As expected, I crossed paths with more people as I progressed down the trail. At the clearing, where our route regained the path of summer trail, a group of snowshoers were just leaving the trail and beginning to head up the side of Flattop. Just before seeing them I passed a couple of women who were switching to hiking boots, one from skis the other from snowboard.

I stopped and enjoyed my plum at the Bierstadt overlook. The plum was nearly perfect – skin still crisp, the flesh at maximum juiciness. Sweet and flavorful.

A group of five young guys approached the Flattop trail junction from Bear Lake as I got there from Two Rivers. They turned to go up Flattop wearing flat soled canvas shoes. “You’ll be hiking on snow from here on, and you’re a long way from any kind of view!” But they were undeterred. I wonder how far they went before they turned around.

In the end, I didn’t get the expected “unremarkable” hike. It was another beautiful day in the park. Even though I’ve been through this area repeatedly, the snow cover and altered route breathed freshness into this visit. I found solitude after a short, easy hike and enjoyed watching the birds.

Iceberg Lake

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Saturday, September 26

The first Saturday of autumn dawned clear and cloudless and looked to be another beautiful day. I didn’t have any plans.

Some time ago, I was browsing Foster’s guide looking for lakes I haven’t visited that aren’t found at the end of long hikes. Iceberg Lake jumped out at me – it’s only two tenths of a mile from the Lava Cliffs parking area on Trail Ridge Road. As Foster puts it, “millions of people view this lake” but very few visit it because there’s no trail. Today would be an ideal day to go there.

After breakfast I called Jerry. He also had no plans, so he agreed to go with me. As the journey to Iceberg Lake hardly qualifies as a hike, the outing would be more of a drive to view the turning of the aspen.

All the local news channels have been touting the aspen for the last few days, so I expected quite a bit of traffic. I wasn’t disappointed – the roads were packed. On the way to Estes Park, we seldom were anywhere near the speed limit. Arriving in Estes, traffic was backed up all the way across the lake. As we were headed to Trail Ridge instead of Bear Lake, I made the mistake of actually going through town. I was thinking I’d take US 34, but traffic that way was pretty bad so we went right through the center of town.

The lines into the Park on 36 weren’t too bad; we were third in line in the express lane. The card reader there was acting a bit wonky and each driver had to swipe their card multiple times to get the gate to go up. While I was struggling with it, a woman from the car behind us ran up: “Mind if I get a picture of your car?”

There aren’t really that many aspen on the way to Estes or in the Park, so I suspect folks were out more for a pleasant drive than to see the autumn colors. Signs at the junction with the Bear Lake road indicated that, not only was the Bear Lake parking lot full, but the park-and-ride lot was full as well.

From the entrance to the Park all the way up to Rainbow Curve, traffic moved pretty slowly, which was okay with us. The weather was as close to perfect as you could ask – clear, calm, sunny, and not hot. Our only concern was that all the parking areas were packed and had people waiting for parking spots. Of course, Lava Cliffs is well above treeline and there aren’t any aspen reasonably visible from there and we had our choice of parking spots.

Before I could get my boots on, an SUV pulled into the empty spot next to us. A guy wearing a Wisconsin Badgers cap on got out and said “Somebody’s a Packer’s fan!” My normal retort to this is “Puck the Fackers”, but I was relatively polite instead and just shook my head and gave an emphatic “No!”

The descent to the lake is pretty straight-forward. We worked our way to a steep grassy ramp, avoiding the worst of the loose footing. The ramp leads down to a pile of loose volcanic rocks. We zig-zagged our way down this talus to the lake and found a spot on the shore of the lake, out of sight from the parking area above. From the looks of things, I expect show covers our picnic spot until quite late in the summer.

To our surprise, although we were quite close to the road we could hear no traffic noise. We sat there for over an hour, watching the world go by. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, so I didn’t bother running the camera for a time lapse. It’s too bad I didn’t have this calm weather last week, but so it goes.

Given the amount of traffic we faced on the way up, I was expecting to crawl all the way back to Lyons. Evidently, our stay was brief compared to most other folks and we were in traffic that moved more or less at the speed limit all the way down..

It was a nice leisurely day – no need to be on the road before dawn, a hike that was less than a thousand paces each direction, and a pleasant drive to view the aspen.

A Discouraging Wind

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Sunday, September 20

Denver’s forecast for Sunday was mid-80’s and clear. It sounded like ideal weather for one last hike above treeline. The goal this time was Isolation Lake. I’d been leaving my options open; there are two lakes above Bluebird Lake that I’ve never been to. Junco Lake is about a mile, across terrain I’ve not gotten a good look at. Isolation Lake is at 12,000′, accessed via a bit over a mile of open tundra. I was undecided which I’d visit until I got to the Park.

I wanted to be on the trail about 7:30. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to get to Bluebird. It’s 6.3 miles, with the last mile fairly steep. I figured the stretch between Bluebird and Isolation would take an hour, so I wanted to be to Bluebird by eleven. I was between Boulder and Lyons for sunrise. Not a cloud in the sky. The drive all the way to the Park was pleasant – there was almost no traffic.

At the trailhead I snagged an end spot. The lot was perhaps a third full. Somehow I got the idea that the bridge had been repaired at Ouzel Falls, but they had signs up saying it was still out. I could try that way on the hike out, as it would only cost me a mile or so if I had to turn around.

Above Copeland Falls they’re nearly done with significant repairs to the trail, damaged two years ago. With the bridge out, I had to take the campsite route to the Thunder Lake trail. I’d been calling it an unimproved trail, but the bridge out sign called it “primitive”. It’s your basic forest trail that gains about seven hundred feet of elevation.

The trail to Ouzel Lake follows the spine of a ridge that was burned in the Ouzel fire in 1978. It’s like a big eraser went through there, removing a strip mature forest a half mile wide and several miles long. This time of year you get a better sense of how much of this strip has been filled in by aspen, the only aspen visible south of the St. Vrain. This section of trail is exposed to the wind and sun. The sun was shining brightly in a clear, deep blue sky. On a July or August afternoon this would be a fierce sun but this morning was quite pleasant. It wasn’t calm, just a light breeze.

Before exiting the burn scar and returning to the forest we pass just above Chickadee Pond and Ouzel Lake to the south. The trail makes climbs a quick four hundred feet, flattens out to cross a talus field, then climbs another four hundred. In this second climb I chatted with a hiker on his way down. “Did you spend the night up here?” “No, thank God. The wind is bad, maybe sixty miles an hour.”

That was a bit discouraging. From Bluebird to Isolation is open tundra, so I’d be hiking into the teeth of the wind. I can assume I might find a big rock to use as a wind break when I got to Isolation, but don’t really know. While it is probably quite pleasant to sit at 12,000′ in bright sunshine and calm, with any sort of wind it will be cold.

When I got to Bluebird I didn’t even take a picture. The wind was fierce. Maybe not sixty but easily forty miles an hour. I took one look in the general direction of my goal and turned around. Although the hike to Junco is more sheltered, the wind wouldn’t be any better. So Plan B is picnic at Ouzel.

Rather than go back to the trail junction, I bushwhacked the hundred yards or so from the Bluebird Lake trail, going between Chickadee Pond and Ouzel Lake. It’s a forest lake, without an abundance of rocks. I tried to find a spot on a rock, in the sun, out of the wind, close to the water. Today, no such place existed. I did find a spot in the shade, slightly protected from the wind. I didn’t set up for a time lapse as there still wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

Below Ouzel Lake I ran into a guy coming up. “Boy, am I glad to see you and this trail!” He didn’t see the bridge out sign at the trailhead and made his way to Ouzel Falls. He went upstream on game trails until he found a spot to cross, but went a long way before regaining the trail. There was no point in heading to Ouzel Falls now that the missing bridge was confirmed. Ouzel Falls is only a nice spot for a break if you’re on the other side of the river.

I took another break on a rock outcropping on the campsite cutoff. Even so, with the shortened hike and abbreviated picnic, I was back to the car by 2:30. Traffic was not nearly as bad as I expected. I assumed lots of people would be driving around viewing the aspen. There was some of that; lots of convertibles and even a couple of early sixties British sports cars. But not heavy traffic, and everybody managed to go as fast as the speed limit for the most part. That is, until reaching Boulder where a biker raced to get to the front of the line then proceeded to putt along at twenty under the limit.

The hike itself was quite pleasant. Once away from the lake, even on the exposed ridge, there was no wind to speak of. And I didn’t see a cloud in the sky the entire day. I didn’t bag a new lake today, but that’s okay. I can pencil another attempt at Isolation on the calendar for next August.

Fay Lakes

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Sunday, September 6

I wanted to visit Fay Lakes last year. In October I got to the bridge over the Roaring River to find that it had been washed out in the previous year’s floods. There was a log that I could have used, but it was covered in frost. So I chickened out and went to Lawn Lake instead.

A couple weeks ago I asked the forum at ProTrails if the bridge has been replaced. It hasn’t, but one hiker said there was an easy crossing about 250 steps upstream. As it turns out, the water is low enough I was able to easily cross right where the bridge used to be. There are warning signs posted: “BRIDGE OUT – Flood Damage – River Crossing Not Recommended”. Hazards include risk of injury and drowning. Not so much in the first week of September – biggest risk is a wet foot.

Once past the Roaring River, the trail climbs to the crest of a ridge. There’s a section of forest here that fascinates me. I haven’t been anywhere else like it. The ground is covered with deadfall and dead pine needles, everything gray. I’d guess just about every place in the region has burned at least once in the last 500 years, but this one small area may have gone twice that long without.

Rewind a bit. I hit the trail a few minutes before 8. I had to park in the smaller lot at the base of the horse trail. I’m guessing I just missed the last spot in the main trailhead parking by a few minutes. Another hiker started at the same time I did. He was headed to Ypsilon Lake so we hiked together. We made good time, passing a few hikers before crossing the river and a few more just after. I neglected to get his name. He was visiting from northern Illinois. He makes a trip to RMNP every year about this time for bicycling and hiking.

We made it to Ypsilon Lake at about ten. I asked if he wanted to continue on to Fay Lakes with me, but he declined. I told him I thought we made great time; he said my pace challenged him a bit on the steeper parts. Based on how much bicycling he does, I’m not sure I challenged him all that much.

Foster says to “bushwhack northeast through dense forest” to Lower Fay Lake, but that it “is easier said than done.” Somebody has put a fair amount of effort into placing cairns along the route. Even so, it is challenging at times to follow. I lost it for a while on the way up but did manage it on the way down. The route climbs a shallow gully for a while; I regained the faint trail here and followed it to the lower lake.

Lower Fay Lake is pretty much what I expected. It’s small a small forest lake with no spectacular views. At this time of year the grass around it is dry, but is certainly quite marshy earlier in the season. The faint trail disappears entirely here; I didn’t see a single wildlife trail or cairn from here on.

Between the lower and middle lakes there is a section of dense forest that was some slow going. After that I reached the stream connecting the two lakes and followed it straight up. It got steep in one place and I had to scramble up a few rocks in one spot. I refilled my water here on the return trip.

Middle Fay Lake sits at the foot of Fairchild Mountain’s gentle southern slope. To the west, the easternmost buttress of Ypsilon Mtn thrusts itself into the sky at a jaunty angle above a grassy ramp. The summit of Fairchild is actually farther away than the summit of Ypsilon, but Ypsilon is much more dramatic.

From here, it’s a simple walk up the grassy ramp, about a quarter of a mile and two hundred feet of elevation, to reach Upper Fay Lake. I crossed the stream about half way up; the stream is so small now that it doesn’t take a long stride to do it. This puts me at the northeastern shore of the long and narrow lake. The water level in the lake is quite low, leaving a mosaic of vegetation and voids.

I found a nice picnic spot near the south eastern shore. After I ate I explored the area. There was a nice view of Fairchild and Middle Fay from the ridge behind me. To the southeast a grassy ramp rises and the map indicates that the other side is much like this one. Foster indicates a route directly back to Ypsilon this way. I considered going back that way but decided to retrace my steps.

After an hour I headed back. The walk from Upper to Middle is quite pleasant – grassy, with open views and easy walking. Most of the day is spent in the forest, with only glimpses of the peaks so I particularly enjoyed the dramatic vistas. There is no trail, but it’s easy to see where the big animals have been. Following the bent grass is like playing connect the dots with deposits of pellets.

The section between the Middle and Lower lakes is almost not so pleasant. It starts with the only part of the hike where I had to use my hands. I refilled the water bottle here, then negotiated a dense section of forest. I never had to deal with willow on this hike, but this section of forest was criss-crossed with maze of deadfall.

Approaching the Lower lake the terrain levels off and transitions to grass, and, finally, the marshy shores of the lake. This hike would be much different in July; much of my route would have been marshy or spongy. I wouldn’t call today dry, but there is little flowing or standing water and the lakes are low.

At the Lower lake I find the trail to Ypsilon. On the way out I managed to stay on the trail. There’s a stretch where the cairns are quite close together and yet sometimes challenging to follow. I both appreciate all the work that went into placing the cairns and wish they’d done more. I felt a nice little satisfaction when I got to Ypsilon Lake without losing the thread.

I took a fruit break at Ypsilon, chatted with a couple of hikers there. One saw my Fitbit; she was wearing one as well. Back at the river crossing I met a couple I had passed on the way up, not far from here. The crossing was giving her some consternation. I crossed the same way I did in the morning and he followed me. Until he couldn’t – “Your stride is just a couple inches longer than mine!”

They asked if I was the guy who hiked to Fay Lakes. They’d talked to my companion on the way up. They, David and Deborah, are from Cincinnati and spend a couple weeks in Estes Park every year. They’ve been doing it for eighteen years. They make sure to take a lot of walks in the weeks before their trip, so they’re prepared for hiking.

I was back to the car by 4:30. Traffic was horrible. Leaving Estes I wanted to get around a trailer (just because), but an SUV got in my way. If I’d have gotten around the trailer, I’d have been happier. The car holding everything up was in front of him. I’d have easily passed one slow car, but I had no chance being fourth in line. The slow guy never went the speed limit and was often twenty below it. Oblivious to the line of cars that stretched out of sight behind him, he never considered using one of the many slow-vehicle pull-outs.