In Indian Peaks Wilderness, in the high valley above Jasper Lake, there is a series of snow-fed lakes and ponds. The highest one, at 11,946′ is Upper Storm Lake. Below that are a few small, unnamed ponds. The lowest body of water in this valley is Storm Lake, 11,426′. I’ve been looking at the map of this area for more than a year. My inner voice tells me I should try to visit Upper Storm Lake. I sometimes have to tell my inner voice to be quiet. My heart, lungs, and legs know better. But there isn’t any reason I can’t get to Storm Lake.
So I asked Chad if he’d like to join me. He may be regretting that he said, “Yes!”
The weather forecast was not favorable. An upslope storm was approaching and Denver was expected to be rainy and cold. The forecasters weren’t sure whether the weather would get bad by mid-morning or mid-afternoon. The National Weather Service said this for Jasper Lake:
Snow showers likely, mainly after 3pm. Some thunder is also possible. Increasing clouds, with a high near 44. Breezy, with an east southeast wind 9 to 14 mph increasing to 17 to 22 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 33 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Little or no snow accumulation expected.
Saturday, September 21
Jasper Lake is reached from the Hessie trailhead. Being a weekend, even with the rather threatening forecast, all the parking was taken and we had to use the shuttle bus from Nederland High School.
It was a beautiful autumn morning, calm with cloudless skies. Not as chilly as I expected. When we got back to the car at the end of the day, we agreed that we couldn’t have asked for better weather. Clouds were widely scattered and thin, until nearly two o’clock. There was only a slight breeze at Storm Lake, which is as good as it gets at treeline beneath the Divide. On the drive out we had only a few sprinkles until we got closer to Denver.
It took us two and a half hours to reach Jasper Lake. The trail isn’t my favorite. Jasper Lake is a reservoir, and the trail mostly follows the road they made when they built the dam.
There’s no official trail above Jasper, but I was expecting to be able to follow a social trail or a game trail. There are stretches where a trail is obvious, but much of the time it’s subtle. That said, the navigation is simple: stay on the south side of the stream. There are a couple of small willow patches to negotiate near the top, but nothing bad.
It’s a bit steep, but the views are worth the effort. The stream is waterfall followed by cascade followed by waterfall. I’d like to come back in July when the stream is running high. I’m sure it’s spectacular.
Storm Lake is nice. The shore has a mixture of boulders, willow, and krummholz. I made a minor exploration of the outlet area. The stream looks much smaller here than on the falls below. The outlet area is rocky rather than marshy. So I was surprised to see that the lake has two outlets. The smaller one joins the main one a couple of hundred feet away.
One of many falls
Storm Lake
Storm Lake
Jasper Lake
Aspen turning
On our way back down, we stopped on the banks of Jasper Lake for a short break. I took off my hoodie and stowed the GoPro in the pack. At least, that was the plan. When I got home, the camera wasn’t in the pack. It wasn’t in the car, either. I’d have sworn I put the camera in the pack and Chad says he remembers me rearranging it. So, I donated a camera. I hope somebody finds it and can make use of it. I’m bummed.
So, needless to say, there’s no video for this hike.
I thought Chad was doing okay. We paused now and then to take in a view, or sip water, or have a quick chat with other hikers. But, as is my usual practice, we didn’t sit down for a break. It wasn’t until after our break at Jasper on the way down that I realized how much he was struggling. We took another break a bit later, after which he took the lead on the trail. I finally understood how much I’d been pushing him. At one point he made a joke about calling the rescue team. At least I think he was joking. We took his car, and when we got off the trail he asked me to drive. I killed Chad. Sorry, man. At least we didn’t get snowed on.
Upper Storm Lake is about a mile past Storm Lake, and another five hundred feet up. It’s beyond my day-hike range, but there is plenty of camping at Jasper Lake and I wouldn’t mind returning to the area to have a go at getting there.
The valley between Mount Wilcox on the north and Square Top Mountain on the south contains three named lakes. The head of the valley abuts Argentine Peak which sits on the Continental Divide. The lakes, Naylor Lake, Silver Dollar Lake, and Murray Lake, are reached from the Silver Dollar Lake trailhead at the end of Naylor Lake Road, just below the summit of Guanella Pass. The dirt road is three-quarters of a mile long, steep and narrow. I would recommend a high-clearance vehicle, but a Toyota Camry pulled into the parking lot a few minutes after I got there.
The trail visits Silver Dollar Lake and Murray Lake. Naylor is bypassed but is visible from much of the trail. The surrounding mountains are all above 13,500′. All but the first half mile of trail is above treeline, with Murray Lake sitting at 12,144′.
I’m curious about Murray Lake. CalTopo maps shows it as Murry Reservoir. Judging from the satellite image, the lake has a dam. There is no bathtub ring, so it must have been full at the time the image was taken.
Monday, September 16
I arrived at the trailhead parking lot a few minutes before 9. I was the fourth vehicle. It took me an hour to get to Silver Dollar Lake and another fifteen minutes to Murray. It’s a high-altitude hike, but the trail isn’t very steep. I spent quite a while at Murray. I sat on the western bank, farthest from the trail.
The lake is snow-fed. The snow was all gone weeks ago, but a few small trickles still come from willow patches hanging on rock outcroppings above my picnic spot.
I was surprised by how much willow filled the valley. Willow likes to have a lot of water. The trail cuts through long sections of it. In a few places, the trail is braided and wide and exposes little areas of the ground the willow is growing in. It’s a little like walking on a mattress – spongy. It’s about as dry as it gets right now, and the willow is brownish-yellow with just a tinge of dark green. The valley is wide and gently sloped and contains an abundance of willow. Hundreds of acres of it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much willow.
When I arrived at Murray, a pair of hikers had nearly caught up to me. They kept following me around the lake and I was beginning to wonder if they were going to sit right next to me. No, they were circumnavigating the lake. I sat at the base of a large outcropping. To hike around the lake, you have to go to the top of this outcropping, a fairly steep climb of about a hundred and fifty feet. If I ever return here, I think I’ll do it.
This late in the season, wildflowers are, for the most part, memories. One of my favorites, though, queen’s crown, is still shining. Most of the other flowers have lost their petals and the leaves are turning brown. Queen’s crown, though, is a deep red. The pink petals have gone deep red. The green leaves and stalk the same.
After my early lunch, I spent a few minutes inspecting the dam. Water is flowing out of a pipe hidden in the rip-rap on the earthen berm. I could hear the source, but not see it. There are no visible controls, no valve to adjust the flow. The lake looks to be at its maximum level, which I’m guessing is about eight feet above its natural level.
It’s not a functional reservoir and it hasn’t been remediated. It is a small earthen dam with a face of rip-rap. The berm has vertical steel plates in it, which stick up a few inches above the earth, heavily rusted. There is other rusted debris atop the dam as well. Standing on the north and looking south, it’s obvious where they got the materials to build the dam.
Naylor Lake, Mount Wilcox
Naylor Lake, Silver Dollar Lake
Murray Lake
Murray Lake, Square Top Mountain
Today’s beer
Dam and quarry
Queen’s Crown, autumn version
“Steely Dam”
When I got back down to Silver Dollar Lake, I saw the same sort of “quarry”, but a bit smaller than the one at Murray. Silver Dollar Lake doesn’t look to my eye to be dammed, but somebody dug out a few cubic yards of material and it had to go somewhere.
I confess that I felt discombobulated on the hike up to Murray. Somehow I was under the impression the hike was four miles each way. It’s four miles round trip. I didn’t bring a map because the navigation is fairly obvious. But I had the scale entirely wrong. Up ahead I could see the shelf that holds Murray. I thought that’s where Silver Dollar was and that I’d be going up the ridge to the right. When I got to Silver Dollar I finally realized my error.
It was a fun little hike. Not too strenuous. Because it’s relatively short and easy, it’s also relatively crowded. Dogs are allowed on leashes, but only a minority of dogs were leashed.
Here it is the middle of September and I’ve only been to RMNP for two day trips and a backpacking trip. This is the least amount of time I’ve spent in the Park since we returned from our exile in Phoenix. I haven’t set foot in Wild Basin or even driven on CO 7 this year. It seems like a good time to hike to Lion Lakes.
There are four named lakes there, and a couple of falls. The hike affords nice views of the dramatic eastern face of Mount Alice. There are no campsites here, and stock is not allowed on the trail, and as it’s nearly seven miles to Lion Lake #1 it’s not crowded.
Thursday, September 12
I awoke before my alarm went off and I was out of the house and to the trailhead earlier than expected. There was plenty of parking and I backed into an end spot by the restrooms.
I’ve been to Lion Lakes a few times. I tend to get a little obsessive about going to a different place for every hike. I need to get over it. But the fact that I make repeat visits to a place says a lot about what I think of the place. I yearn to visit new places. When I don’t scratch that itch, I’m not going to go back to someplace that I think is unexceptional.
I didn’t really have a plan for the day, other than getting to Lion Lake #1. I had options. By the time I got to the lake, I had decided what to do. If you follow the unnamed outlet stream down from Lion Lake #1 you’ll come across Thunder Falls. Foster says the place is “no small task to reach”. The navigation sounds pretty simple, though, so I assume there must be obstacles.
I stopped for lunch at the lake. The million-dollar view is from the east bank. Today I went to the west bank. Much of the west bank is a grassy marsh, but by mid-September, it’s pretty dry. I picked one of the large, flat boulders in the pleasant sunshine and had my lunch: a PB&J sandwich, chips, and a beer.
I have a couple of go-to sandwiches for hikes. One is a turkey bacon avocado and pepper-jack cheese, where the bacon is jalapeno bacon. The other is ham, salami, and pepperoni with provolone cheese. I almost never take a peanut butter sandwich.
My favorite peanut butter delivery mechanism is toast. Put a stout slice of homemade bread in the toaster just until it starts to brown. I want warmth but not crispiness. Slather on a nice layer of creamy peanut butter and wait a minute. The peanut butter gets molten. You have to be sure to hold the toast level, or it drips into your hand. Not very portable, though.
When it comes to PB&J, I’ll say I haven’t had peanut butter and jelly since about the second grade. Jam or preserves beat jelly every time. Strawberry was my favorite in my misspent youth. It’s been red raspberry for ages now.
Today’s sandwich was on the store-bought sourdough rather than my low-budget home-baked bread. My bread is on the dense side. I wanted pockets. Sourdough has nice pockets. The slices are a bit small, so I made two sandwiches. They survived the morning’s hike unsmushed, which was nice. By the time I bit into one, the preserves had infused the bread and filled the pockets. Yum.
By now you might be wondering just what sort of beer pairs with a PB&J sandwich. To tell the truth, I didn’t put any thought into it at all. I got lucky. I brought New Belgium’s 1985 Mango IPA. The tart hoppiness of the IPA complemented the sourdough bread, while the sour mango played well with the raspberry.
Picnic over, I headed for Thunder Falls. Even though I wanted to be on the east side of the stream, I continued circumnavigating the lake. I ran the risk of not finding a convenient streamcrossing. The outlet of the lake is typically marshy. The stream meanders lazily and there are a few ponds. I found an easy crossing, then worked my way downstream.
Tanima Peak (l), Mount Alice (r)
Left to right: Copeland Mountain, Mahana Peak, Tanima Peak
Today’s beer
Chiefs Head Peak
Lion Lake #1 outlet
Cattywampus Texan
The bushwhacking wasn’t terribly difficult. The deadfall wasn’t too bad, and the ground descends very gradually at first. You can hear the falls long before you can see them. Obviously, the terrain next to the falls is as steep as the falls. I wanted to get to the bottom of the falls, but all the rocks below me were wet, so I didn’t want to go that way. I made a half-hearted search for another route before giving up. The falls aren’t very large, and there’s not much water in the stream. If I were to return in July, when the flow is much greater, I’d make more of an effort to see the falls from below.
I had nearly complete solitude much of the day. About half an hour away from the lake I ran into one hiker on his way down. He turned around before he got there. While having lunch, I saw two pairs of hikers, one going up and the other going down. I didn’t see anybody else until I back to the main trail, a bit over a mile from the parking lot.
When I got back to the car, my nice end spot wasn’t an end spot anymore. A Volvo with Texas plates was parked cattywampus in front of me, between the tree and the rock, on top of the slab of sidewalk. C’mon, man!
It was another enjoyable hike. The weather was ideal, the solitude was welcome, the exercise invigorating, the scenery fantastic, and the PB&J and beer were tasty.
I scheduled only one backpacking trip this year, two nights at the Upper Chipmunk campsite near Ypsilon Lake. The objective is to get to Spectacle Lakes. Just judging by mileage, I should be able to do Spectacle Lakes as a day hike. I’ve already done Chiquita Lake and Fay Lakes as day hikes. Both those are reached from the same trailhead, are farther than Spectacle, and at about the same elevation. But the last push to Spectacle involves negotiating a steep granite slab and may be more than I can deal with.
September 2-4
I didn’t see much point in getting an early start. The campsite is just a bit over four miles, so it’s long a long hike. The lot at the trailhead isn’t very large, but when I picked up our permit, the ranger told me we could park at the picnic area for the alluvial fan. Still, I had my usual anxiety about finding a parking spot.
Naturally, the trailhead lot was full when we got there about ten. We headed to the picnic area. There are two parking lots for the alluvial fan, one east and one west. The two are connected by a paved path that is wheelchair accessible. The trailhead is east of the east lot and, as you might guess, this lot was full. We did find a place in the west lot, though, so we were ready to go. Parking here, our hike was half a mile longer each way, but it’s an easy half mile so not a bad trade for leaving three hours later. In compensation for the bonus half-mile hike, we spotted a few wild turkeys.
What I hadn’t given much thought to was my lunch schedule. I’m a creature of habit. I like my lunch in the noon hour. The noon hour had come and gone and we seemed to still be a fair distance from camp. I didn’t want to stop on the trail to dine, so kept pushing. But my breakfast was nothing but a memory and the uphill hike carrying thirty pounds more than I take on a day hike had me really wanting to take a break.
Not long past Chipmunk Lake (which is really a pond and not deserving the epithet “lake”, but it has a very nice view of Ypsilon Mountain), I was really struggling. I knew we couldn’t have far to go, but I had to take a break. I spotted a dandy place to relax: a the base of a talus field, basking in the sun, with a wealth of raspberry bushes bursting with ripe berries. Oh, joy! The raspberries in my back yard were pitiful this year, so I was delighted to eat some fresh, tasty berries.
After our rest, we resumed our slog. Thirty-five paces later, we reached the sign pointing up a spur trail to our campsite. Yeah, shame on me for taking a break. But, boy, were those raspberries delicious. I came back for a second visit the next day and even grabbed a last few berries on our hike out.
Upper Chipmunk has two campsites and a privy. One site was occupied, so we took the other. There really isn’t much to choose from between the two. There’s a minimum of deadfall around the sites. They’re fairly close to each other though. No matter, it’s a pleasant place to spend a couple of nights. We tucked into lunch, then started setting up camp.
The moment I finished erecting my tent, the skies opened up. It wasn’t rain, it wasn’t snow, it wasn’t hail. It wasn’t even graupel. It was slush. Slush was falling from the sky. Slushballs as big as a quarter inch diameter, plopping everywhere. I dove into the tent to wait it out. The slush turned to rain, which lasted almost an hour. I had a little power nap. About an hour later, the storm abated and I crawled out of my tent.
Gordon’s timing wasn’t so good. He uses a hammock with a cover, but he hadn’t gotten it put together before the skies opened. He spent the hour sitting on a boulder, huddled under his poncho. He didn’t say so, but I imagine he was wondering why I had to take a break in a raspberry patch so close to our campsite. Sorry, Gordon.
I collected enough slush from the rain cover of my tent to pack around my beers. I’ve gotten accustomed to drinking warm (or warmish) beer on my hikes, so this was nice.
We spent what was left of the afternoon exploring the area around the campsite and Ypsilon Lake. There is a trail from each campsite down to the lake that’s a bit shorter than taking the main trail, but to return to the campsite it’s easy to get on the wrong trail and end up at the other site.
I’ve been to Ypsilon Lake at least four other times. I like to think I’m paying attention to my surroundings, but that’s not always true. After sitting beside the water for an extended time, I began to wonder if the lake is dead. I saw occasional disturbances on the surface of the water and I thought it was fish rising to the surface. But the water is clear and from the shore you can see a fair piece into the lake. I never saw a fish, and there’s nothing growing on the lake bed. We spotted a solitary duck criss-crossing the water, clearly hunting for something. I watched it dive underwater a few times, staying under for as much as 20 seconds and coming up many yards from where it dove, but I have no idea if it scored anything.
On day two, we had a leisurely morning. Spectacle Lakes are only about a mile from our campsite. There’s no official trail, but enough people make the trip that route finding isn’t terribly difficult. It’s steep, and there are a couple of water crossings. I didn’t find any more raspberries on our climb, but we did come across some huckleberries. Not quite ripe yet.
By 10:30, we had arrived at the crux of the trip. I’ve read a number of descriptions of the route. They all mention this steep slab. I’m not a big fan of steep slabs. When we got to the bottom of this one, I knew I wouldn’t be going any farther. I am always concerned that I’ll be tempted to climb up something that I won’t be able to climb back down. I wasn’t tempted to climb up this. Gordon is more of a mountain goat, though, and he had no qualms about it.
I waited on this ledge, somewhere about 11,200′ above sea level, while Gordon continued up to the lakes. It’s a pleasant little spot for a picnic, so I ate my lunch. No, I didn’t bring one of my beers with me. While dining, my phone chimed with a text message. I wouldn’t have thought I’d have cell service up here. I had a nice view of Twin Sisters, Estes Cone, and Longs Peak that I posted to Instagram. Technology, gotta love it!
In the lead up to this trip, I’ve been telling folks that I was counting on Gordon to get me to the lakes. It never was a serious thought: nobody can take me where I’m unwilling to go. But I think he took it to heart. After he returned to the ledge, with full knowledge of what lies between here and the lakes, he told me he thinks he can get me there. All we need is a length of rope with knots every few feet. That would get me past this twenty or thirty feet of terrain I’m not happy about. Needless to say, we didn’t bring any rope. I’ve mentally put Spectacle Lakes on my list of RMNP lakes that are beyond my reach.
We spent another afternoon in the environs of Ypsilon Lake. Gordon is a curious guy, always interested in his surroundings. He made a circumnavigation of the lake, then sat a few yards from my position. He found a rock by the water where a few lady bugs appear to be farming aphids. Maybe not aphids. But these lady bugs sure had an insect farm of some sort on that rock. While he was watching the lady bug insect farm, a ground squirrel stole one of his nuts. The next time the squirrel took a nut, Gordon got a close-up of it.
Wild Turkey
Raspberry patch
Our campsite
Slush-cooled beers
Ypsilon Lake outlet
Ledge view
How to proceed?
Spot Gordon
Ypsilon Lake
Gordon, nature photographer
Huckleberries!
Other than our slush storm, the weather was quite nice on Monday and Tuesday. It didn’t get very cold overnight, and when I ventured out of my tent for a “comfort break” in the wee hours of the morning, the sky was clear, moonless, and full of stars. I didn’t see the Milky Way, though. So it goes.
Before turning in on Tuesday night, we talked about what time we wanted to pack up in the morning. We agreed on 9:00, but the morning dawned overcast and threatening. We packed up early and were on the trail before it started sprinkling. It never rained very hard, but the low hanging clouds cut the tops off the high mountains: judging from the view of Longs Peak, the ceiling was not much above 11,000′.
I have no video for this trip. I managed to leave the GoPro on the living room floor where it does me no good. So it goes. My other technological failure was with my water purification. My Steri-Pen worked the first time I refilled my water bottle, but didn’t work after that. I’ve since swapped the batteries but it’s still not working. I guess I’ll be looking for a replacement before my next backpacking trip.
In spite of not reaching my destination, it was a nice trip.
Starting a bit more than a century ago, a number of alpine lakes in what is now Rocky Mountain National Park and Indian Peaks Wilderness had their capacity enlarged by building dams. With the failure of the Lawn Lake dam in 1982, the reservoirs in the Park have all been removed and the lakes returned to their previous state. Natural processes are quite slow at high altitude, and most of these lakes have a noticeable “bathtub ring” where one can see the difference between the natural level of the lake and the higher level when it was dammed.
In Indian Peaks, though, some of these reservoirs and dams still exist, and at least one I’ve been to, Jasper Lake, is still operating.
Skyscraper Reservoir is of a more recent vintage than those decommissioned reservoirs in the Park. Those were constructed between the 1890s and 1920s. Skyscraper Reservoir wasn’t built until the 1940s.
Everett Long, the second-generation owner of Long’s Gardens in Boulder, decided that he needed a better water source to keep his seed and garden business going and growing. He was an avid mountaineer (he climbed Longs Peak 93 times!) with intimate knowledge of the area that is now the Park and the IPW.
Long knew the drainages and many lakes of the high country well. He had graduated from CU in 1934 and had studied water law. Today, land use policies and water law are highly complex, but back in Ev’s day, it was still possible for an individual (or small company) to find a mountain lake that was suitable for a dam, build it, and access the stored water. So that’s what he set out to do.
Everett and his wife Anne were newlyweds and honeymooned at a cabin in the Fourth of July area. They spent their days hiking the high country, ultimately settling on what was then called Upper Woodland Lake as the right place. In 1940, preparations were made to transform Upper Woodland Lake into Skyscraper Reservoir. Plans for the dam were submitted to the Colorado State Engineer that summer and approved in September 1940.
That same fall, equipment was hauled to the lake so that work could begin the next year. The following summer, Upper Woodland Lake was drained and excavation for the dam’s foundation was completed. In 1942, construction of the dam began, but work had to be put on hold for the next three years while Long served as a civilian flight instructor during WWII. After the war, work on the reservoir resumed. While horses were used early in the project to transport equipment, dynamite, and concrete, they soon purchased a 1947 Dodge Power Wagon and an M29 Weasel (a tracked vehicle developed during the war for use on snow and difficult terrain) that served until the project was completed.
Today, a road and bridges still survive a bit further than the spur trail to Lost Lake, there was never a proper road built the last few miles to the dam. The Dodge could deal with the rudimentary roads as far as they went, but it was necessary to use the truck’s winch to pull itself up the final three miles to the construction site.
The working season above 11,000 feet is short, so it took five more summers to complete construction. Finally, in 1951, the water level was raised 15 ft. and the reservoir was filled to capacity. In 1967, Skyscraper Reservoir was sold to the City of Boulder.
Tuesday, August 27
I arrived at the trailhead at about 7:30 and was able to park very close to the shuttle bus stop. Usually, I have to park a fair distance down the road.
I’m not a big fan of the trail from the trailhead to the spur trail to Lost Lake. It’s mostly a four-wheel-drive road, wide, with a gentle grade. But there are a lot of large, loose rocks and the footing doesn’t allow for a quick pace.
There are two trails that parallel Jasper Creek, one on each side. I took the one on the west. As you near the Woodland Lake junction, the trail gets a bit thready. I’ve now done two round trips along this section, so four times through, and don’t think I’ve gone exactly the same way twice.
About a quarter mile above the Woodland Creek junction, the trail crosses a stream. The bridge here is broken. People have piled a bunch of branches across it. Last year I came this way but the water was running over all of it so I turned around and went to Lost Lake. Today, the water was low enough that crossing wasn’t a problem. None of the trail is very steep, but the the first mile after the junction, with the broken bridge in the middle, is the steepest.
The peaks at the head of the valley are relatively gently sloped: there are no towering crags, no steep rock faces. Woodland Lake is your basic forest lake. The hike through the forest is pleasant, but dramatic scenery is not on offer here. But the dam is of interest. Most of the small alpine reservoirs in the area were remediated in the wake of the Lawn Lake flood.
As is typical at the Divide, the wind was on the unpleasant side. I certainly didn’t want to sit near the dam. I watched the wind on the water for a few minutes then set off for the opposite side of the lake, in the lee of the slope.
It’s not clear to me if this lake is still used as a reservoir. The dam still stands. That is, there is no sign of any attempted removal of the structure. But the water level is right about at the base of the dam, so the lake today is about its original size. Based on my two visits to the broken bridge, I’d say the water flow was normal seasonal flow – that is, uncontrolled. On the other hand, there isn’t much growth in the bathtub ring compared to reservoirs that were reclaimed in the 80s. Some grasses, but no shrubs or tree saplings.
I’ve been making an effort to select hikes that I can get to in the fun car. If I take the SUV, I leave Genae without a vehicle. Last week I took the SUV to the trailhead at Monarch Lake and thought it wouldn’t be a problem to drive the Lotus. It had rained the night before my hike and the road wasn’t muddy at all and, as I reported, only the last mile gave me any caution. If I went pretty slow, I thought I’d be okay. So for this week’s hike, I returned to the trailhead at Monarch Lake.
Thursday, August 15
The difference this time was that the road wasn’t dry. It certainly had rained overnight. I must have been mistaken that it had rained the night before my last hike. From US 34 to the trailhead, it’s 9.6 miles. The first couple of tenths are paved, and only the last 0.8 miles had any loose stones. The speed limit is 25, and I stuck to that (or less) until I got to the last stretch, where I crawled along at about 10 mph.
When I got out of the car, I couldn’t help but see (I’m exaggerating here) about a hundred pounds of mud on the car. Last week, you couldn’t even tell I’d taken the SUV on a dirt road. I joke about how seldom I wash the Lotus. Well, I’d be washing it real soon!
The way to Gourd Lake begins on the same trail I took last week to Mirror Lake and Crater Lake, until the junction with the Buchanan Pass trail. Here we make a left turn rather than a right turn. The trail, parallelling Buchanan Creek, is rather run-of-the-mill, affording neither open views nor interesting falls or cascades.
After hiking 2.2 miles up the Buchanan Pass trail we come to the junction with the spur trail that takes us to the lake. The trail climbs a steep slope to reach Gourd Lake, which is situated on a small shelf. Looking at the map, I was not looking forward to this bit. My hikes up the steep trails in Eagles Nest Wilderness had me anticipating that I might be quite slow on this final push to the lake.
I was worried over nothing. The trail is nicely graded and uses a series of about a dozen switchbacks. It is a persistent climb, but is never steep. I had allowed two hours to hoist my sorry ass up the side of the valley, but even with a short break to enjoy a fresh Palisade peach it was more like an hour and a half.
The trail climbs a south facing slope and I was looking forward to views of the dramatic territory along the Continental Divide. The forest here isn’t terribly dense, and on a slope like this I figured there might be several places with a clear, unobstructed view. Glimpses are afforded, but any panoramic look at the terrain was slightly veiled.
Arriving on the shelf holding the lake, we first come to a small pond that is Not Gourd Lake. On my map, the trail skirts to the left here. I kept on the vague path that goes to the right, going around the bent “neck” of the gourd, taking me to the eastern shore.
The weather had been nice so far. Once the early clouds burned off, the skies overhead were their usual brilliant blue. But once I sat down for my picnic, some rather threatening clouds appeared. A slight breeze picked up and it did start to sprinkle but never enough that I felt I needed to put on my jacket. The change in weather did encourage me to cut my stay at the lake a bit short. The weather godz were just messing with me, though, as it cleared up about half an hour after I started hiking back to the car. So it goes.
Clouds over Lake Granby
A bit muddy, eh?
Misty, Mirrored Monarch Lake
Thunderbold Peak
Today’s beer
Gourd Lake
Left to Right: Algonquin (obscured), Paiute Peak, Mount Toll
I don’t have any video or timelapse for this trip. I plugged the GoPro in to charge it. I would swear it was charging, but when I arrived at the lake and tried to turn it on, the battery was dead, dead, dead. Oh well.
The trailhead area is quite busy, even though the parking lot wasn’t full in the morning nor in the afternoon. Quite a few people take the loop around Monarch Lake. Beyond Monarch Lake, most of the hiker/backpacker traffic heads towards Crater Lake or Pawnee Pass. After I made my left turn onto the Buchanan Pass trail, I only came across six other hikers.
Just over a ridge to the north of Gourd Lake is Island Lake. It’s a bit out of my range for a day trip, but certainly looks like it would be a fun side trip for a backpacker. I keep a list of places I may want to hike to. Funny, the list never seems to get any shorter.
I’ve never been responsible for naming any geographical features, but I’ll grant that it can sometimes be quite difficult. Two obvious issues come to mind. First, naming places after people. Times change, and attitudes change (thankfully). We’ve seen some prominent places renamed in recent years: Mount McKinley is now Mount Denali and Mount Evans is now Mount Blue Sky.
If we try to avoid naming things after people, we run into the issue of duplicates. I wondered earlier how many Columbine Lakes there might be in Colorado. The USGS database lists six. I don’t know how to find out which name has the most lakes. Crater Lake might be in the running, with 11 entries in the USGS database for Colorado. One entry in that list is for the Crater Lakes I visited in James Peak Wilderness, which is actually three lakes.
The Crater Lake in Indian Peaks Wilderness has been on my list of possible hikes for a year. On my hike to Columbine Lake, I met a couple of hikers who said it was one of the prettiest lakes they’d ever been to. That piqued my interest.
August 6, 2024
Crater Lake is reached from the Monarch Lake trailhead. Monarch Lake is nine and a half miles east of US 34 on County Road 6. It’s not asphalt, but the first seven or eight may as well be. There is a little bit of loose gravel, but the surface is almost like a paved road. There are campgrounds up here, and there’s a lot of RV traffic, so the road is quite well maintained. The final mile or so is good enough that I would consider driving the fun car next time.
The trailhead is a two-and-a-half-hour drive from home. I set my alarm for five and was able to put boots on the trail by 7:45. I still haven’t figured out how to use my pass for these non-Park hikes, and I didn’t see the kiosk on the way in, so I risked a fine. I left my Senior Pass on the dash and hoped that would mollify the powers that be.
After passing the three-quarter-mile-long Monarch Lake, the trail from the Wilderness boundary to the junction with Buchanan Pass is a rather run-of-the-mill forest hike. Long stretches are nearly level and free of rocks and roots, allowing for a quick pace. The trail junction with Buchanan Pass is not quite halfway to the destination, and I covered it in less than an hour and a half. It was starting to look like maybe I could reach the lake in less than four hours.
Now the trail heads up a valley that runs nearly three miles in a straight line to the southeast. The head of the canyon is deep in the heart of the Indian Peaks, surrounded by Cherokee, Iroquois, Apache, Shoshone, Hopi, and Navajo. None are 14ers, and only a couple are 13ers, but in combination, they’re an impressive group of peaks, all vertical lines and jagged profiles.
Most of the elevation gain of the hike is on this stretch. The effort of the climb is well rewarded with some nice cascades and waterfalls. There are a number of campsites at the lake, and the trail is well-traveled by backpackers. If I were to be carrying 35 or 40 pounds, I’d enjoy stopping for breaks at these falls. But I pushed on.
When I reached a series of switchbacks that climbed a fairly steep slope, I couldn’t help but think that if this trail was in the Eagles Nest Wilderness, they’d have just made it go straight up. At the top of these switchbacks is Mirror Lake, with an amazing view. I paused here for a few minutes to get some photos, then pushed on to Crater. A quick quarter mile later and you’re there.
Lone Eagle Peak dominates the view at both lakes.
I’ve been asked many times what my favorite lake is. I don’t really have one. I don’t have a Top 10, either. But if I did have a Top 10, I think I’d have to put Crater Lake on it.
Camping is allowed by permit, using designated spots. I saw signs with sites numbered as high as 11 but didn’t see signs for 11 sites. I think this would be an excellent place to spend a couple of nights. With two nights here, I’d consider a visit to Pawnee Lake a couple of miles away. And if I was adventurous, I’d take a stab at bushwhacking to Triangle Lake.
On the way back, I ran into a couple of guys who had lost the trail. I didn’t see them – they spotted me. There’s a place where the trail goes over solid rock for perhaps eighty yards. There are nice cairns at each end and one in the middle. They didn’t know to go from cairn to cairn and instead went into the bush.
Not long after that, two young men caught and passed me. They were traveling very light, t-shirts and shorts, and some water. Storm clouds were forming to the north, moving to the east. Perhaps it would miss us, but it didn’t look good. As they passed me, they asked if I thought we’d get rained on. “Probably”. They told me they had intended to get to the top of Pawnee Pass, but the weather prospects turned them around. They said maybe they’d started too late. I asked when they started. “12:30”. I told them I like to be off the top by noon.
A few minutes after they passed me, it started to sprinkle. Over the next few minutes, it increased a bit, and the skies were darkening. I stopped and put on my rain jacket. A minute later, there was one bright zap with its crash less than two seconds behind. That was close, less than half a mile! And that was it. It stopped raining. I have little doubt that by putting on my jacket I single-handedly stopped the rain. Ha!
There was more traffic on the trail than I expected, with a relatively high percentage being backpackers. I talked to people that had started their hike at Brainard Lake and I talked to folks who were headed there. That’s quite the climb with a heavy pack. Pawnee Pass tops out at about 12,500′.
Monarch Lake
At Monarch Lake
Cascade Creek
Mirror Lake
Mirror Lake
Today’s beer
Crater Lake
I stopped at one of the nice falls for a break. I refilled my water and had my second peach. Yum!
When I was nearly back to Monarch Lake, I made a slight navigation error at a trail junction. I should have stayed to the right, but the sign said Monarch Lake trailhead was to the left, so I went that way. That took me the long way around Monarch Lake. I realized this pretty quickly and could have turned around, but I thought I might as well see a different view of the place. Unfortunately, the trail on the south shore doesn’t go along the shore: it’s up the slope a ways. You don’t get down to the water until you get to the western end of the lake. So it goes.
It’s a strenuous hike, but it has a nice payoff. It took me about four hours each way, and it’s a bit of a drive from Denver. Highly recommended.
I only started hiking in Eagles Nest Wilderness last year, so I’m not really that familiar with the terrain. If I get some of the details of the geography or the boundaries incorrect, I apologize.
Eagles Nest Wilderness was established in 1976. The mountains in the wilderness are the southern peaks of the Gore Range. The Gore Range goes roughly from Tenmile Peak in the south to Rabbit Ears Pass in the north. In various places in this 1400 square mile area are Gore Creek, Gore Lake, Gore Pass, and Gore Canyon.
Gore Creek runs through Vail and joins the Eagle River about five miles below the town. Gore Creek is fed by the outlet streams from other lakes I’ve recently hiked to: Pitkin, Booth, and Deluge. As, for example, Pitkin Creek originates from Pitkin Lake, one might expect Gore Creek to originate from Gore Lake. This is not correct. Gore Creek begins at an unnamed lake about two and a half miles south of Gore Lake as the crow flies.
Why so many places named “Gore”? I have found three possibilities.
Some say that the name for Gore Pass originated from its wedge shape. (A gore is a triangular piece, say, of cloth or land. On an Interstate highway, the triangle between the traffic lanes and the on-ramp or off-ramp is the gore point.) Once the pass got its name, it spread to the other geographical features.
Other folks, including Henry Gannett (a member of the Hayden Survey of 1871, which came nowhere near this area) claimed the name honored George Gore, a Denver gunsmith.
Those possibilities are boring. The third origin story is that all these places are named for Sir St. George Gore. There are quite a few tall tales about the man. He was from Sligo, Ireland, and was a big fan of hunting. He arrived in St. Louis in 1853 and in the following few years hired Jim Bridger as a guide. Due to Gore’s “peculiar disposition”, Bridger charged him thirty dollars a day to put up with him. One of the tall tales is that Gore was the real discoverer of gold in the Rockies, but he kept quiet about it because he didn’t want to spoil the hunting.
Gore’s hunting expedition, which lasted nearly three years and is believed to have cost half a million dollars (about twenty million in 2024 dollars) is said to have included forty men, one hundred and twelve horses, twelve yoke of oxen, fourteen hunting dogs, six wagons, and twenty-one carts full of champagne. The exact number of animals killed by Gore is unknown, but he claimed to have killed 105 bears, 1,600 deer and elk, and 2,000 buffalo. At the end of the expedition, he had agreed to sell his equipage to the American Fur Company in St. Louis but a last-minute dispute over the price put Gore in a bad mood and he burned it all. Oh, and the expedition never visited the mountain range that bears his name.
The hike to Gore Lake is similar to the other hikes I’ve mentioned: Pitkin, Booth, and Deluge. Gore Creek flows through a valley that has a series of hanging valleys above it. To reach any of these lakes, you have to climb out of the lower valley, up steep slopes to reach the hanging valleys, and then proceed up the valley before another steep rise to whichever lake is the goal. For Pitkin, Booth, and Deluge, the hike starts with the climb out of the valley but to reach Gore Lake, we have to hike up the lower valley a few miles to reach Gore Lake’s hanging valley.
Tuesday, July 30
Having learned on my Deluge Lake hike that there’s no shortage of parking at the trailhead, I could dispense with the shuttle bus and start the hike as early as I wanted. This hike is a bit longer than the others (AllTrails says 6.0 miles each way; Caltopo maps has it at 5.8), so I had some concerns as to how long this little walk would take me. I averaged only a bit more than a mile an hour on the other hikes. But because the elevation gain isn’t quite so great, I was hoping I’d be able to maintain a somewhat brisker pace. I reckoned that I should be able to reach the lake in about four hours.
In preparation, I mentally broke the hike down into two sections. The first section is the hike up the valley to the junction with the spur trail that goes to the lake. The second section is the spur trail, which begins with the climb up to the hanging valley. After the initial steep climb, the trail mellows quite a bit before reaching the final ascent to the lake.
The first four miles of the hike are quite pleasant. The elevation gain isn’t remarkable, and while the trail isn’t often close to the creek, it passes through a varied, not-very-dense forest. Sometimes aspen, sometimes pine, with occasional breaks in the tree cover revealing the valley walls. There are a couple of short stretches where it looks like a forest fire burned through here maybe a decade or more ago.
When I reached the spur trail that leads to Gore Lake, I came across something I’ve never encountered on a hike before: a gravesite.
Here we get to the crux of the hike: climbing up to the hanging valley, six hundred feet up in about a kilometer.
I tried to keep my mind off the steepness by doing some math. I estimated how many steps it would be to the lake. Number of miles times the number of feet in a mile, divided by my stride length. Take one percent of that and start counting. The number of steps I came up with was wrong, but it doesn’t matter. If I wanted to know how many steps, I could look at my FitBit. But I did count out my incorrect 1% twelve times before I quit, and by then I was nearly done with the climb.
The rest of the hike to the lake is quite nice. There’s a final lift of four hundred feet, but it’s not as steep as the climb out of the lower valley. The trail offers plenty of open views of the surrounding peaks.
Gore Lake is quite scenic. It’s not a stark lake surrounded by talus and tundra, it’s a bit below treeline and has a smattering of trees. It also seems to be a regular hangout for a herd of mountain goats. I chatted with a couple of folks who hike here regularly. They said they see the goats every time they’re here. They seem quite habituated to people and even use the trails along the lakeshore.
Andrew and Daniel Recen gravesite
Red Peak, from below Gore Lake
Gore Lake and Snow Peak
Today’s beer
“We prefer standing on rocks!”
Gore Lake
“Nice lake, eh?”
Gore Lake, Snow Peak
“Make way! Coming through!”
Of the four hikes I’ve done from trailheads in Vail, I enjoyed this one the most. It’s longer than the others but isn’t quite as strenuous. The noise from the highway fades more quickly, and I think this is the prettiest of the four lakes. It’s definitely worth a visit, if you’re up to the task.
Eleven miles up a dirt road off US 40 near Tabernash is the Junco Lake Trailhead. The name confuses me. The only Junco Lake I can find in Colorado is the one in Wild Basin in RMNP. That Junco Lake is twelve miles to the north on the other side of the Continental Divide. You can’t get there from here.
Where you can get from here is Columbine Lake. There is likely more than one Columbine Lake in Colorado. This one lies 11,047′ above sea level in the morning shadow of the northern flank of Mount Neva in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. This is my third view of Mount Neva, having visited Lake Dorothy and the Neva Lakes.
I very nearly decided to hike to Caribou Lake via Arapaho Pass. It would have been about as strenuous as my two recent hikes near Vail. I thought I’d take a break, though, from the steep ones and do an easy one. Protrails.com has been offline for a while now, so I think it’s dead. I don’t think I like Alltrails as much. Alltrails lists Columbine Lake as 3.4 miles each way. CalTopo maps shows it as 3.23 miles.
Tuesday, July 23
Because it’s a shorter hike, I didn’t need to hit the road before dawn. It’s a tad over two hours to get to the trailhead. The trailhead is in the national forest and there’s a use fee. Their website says I can use my lifetime pass. Unfortunately, the kiosk had no way for me to use my pass so I paid the five bucks.
I arrived at the trailhead a few minutes after nine. There was plenty of parking available. I had a quick chat with a couple of guys who were putting on their backpacks. They were headed to Caribou Lake over Caribou Pass. I can imagine how much fun hefting forty pounds up that trail. I think if I was camping at Caribou Lake, I’d take the long way from Monarch Lake instead of the bonus 800′ of elevation (each way!).
Anywho, I put boots on the trail at 9:16. The first section of trail, up to the Indian Peaks Boundary sign is an old 4×4 road, full of loose, round rocks but easy hiking. Somehow I missed it on the way up, not spotting it until nearly back to the car, there’s a derelict cabin a few yards off the trail.
From the boundary to the junction with the spur trail to the lake, the trail skirts a large grassy meadow. The open meadows mean open views, and before long we get a nice look at Mount Neva. Half a mile after entering the Wilderness, there’s a trail junction. The main trail continues to the left, eventually topping Caribou Pass. To reach Columbine Lake, take the trail to the right.
The final mile and a half of trail is the most scenic. Unfortunately, today the air is full of smoke from wildfires in Canada and the Pacific Northwest, a thousand or more miles away. All too far away to give the air a smokey smell, but enough to make what should be brilliant blue to something between gray and a pale brown.
Cabin ruins
Mount Neva
Columbine Lake
Today’s Beer
Columbine Lake and Peak 11831
Columbine Lake gets a fair amount of visitors, and there are social trails that circumnavigate it. I went around it counter-clockwise. Doing this, you get dumped back onto the trail to the lake a fair distance below the actual lake. Had I intended to go around the lake clockwise, I probably wouldn’t have found the little trail. In any event, the lake is surrounded by grassy meadows filled with wildflowers.
The one flower I didn’t see all day: columbines! I don’t know how many lakes in Colorado are called Columbine Lake (and, certainly, there is more than one) but I’m guessing this is the only one where you won’t see any columbines.
A little bit less than eight miles east of downtown Vail, Deluge Lake lies 11,748′ above sea level at the head of a scenic alpine valley embraced by the flanks of Snow Peak, Mt. Valhalla, Grand Traverse, and the forgetably named Peak 12485.
The lake is reached via a trail that starts at the Gore Creek trailhead just east of Vail proper.
I’ll pull the bandaid off this one quickly: the trail climbs well over three thousand feet in about four and a half miles. Alltrails says it’s 3444′, but according to the maps, the net gain is only (“only”, he says!) 3035′. The four-hundred-foot difference, then, is in miscellaneous dips and rises.
You can break it down into three sections. The first bit runs from the trailhead to about 11,000′. That’s roughly two and a quarter miles, for a slope of a bit more than a thousand feet per mile. The next section is about a mile and ends up still at 11000′, but it rises and falls a bit, so it’s not flat and level. The last section is a bit less than a mile and climbs the remaining 750′ (or a bit more), again with a slope approaching a thousand feet per mile.
July 17, 2024
Having learned where to park last week, I headed straight to the Vail Village parking structure. That’s co-located at the Vail Transportation Center, so I just had to climb a flight of stairs to get to the shuttle bus. My failure this time was not doing any reconnaissance at the trailhead. The shuttle bus drops hikers off at a stop about a quarter of a mile from the trailhead, so I added half a mile to the round-trip distance. And, naturally, you might guess that when I got to the trailhead at 8:30 I found that there was plenty of parking available. Note to self: when hiking from this trailhead on a weekday, check the availability of parking before resorting to the shuttle.
I started off at a very slow pace. I wanted to set a pace that I could maintain over the long haul. I was promptly passed by two women, then by three trail maintenance volunteers. Even in the middle not-cruelly-steep section, I didn’t speed up. And I was slow up the final lift. It wasn’t record-slow territory (I was slower going up the Manitou Incline), I averaged only a bit more than a mile an hour: trailhead to lake in four hours (3:59, to be precise).
I was at about the top of the first climb when I met the trail volunteers again. They were clearing deadfall off the trail. I chatted briefly with them; they clearly didn’t want to be distracted from their work. After passing them, I should have kept track of how many dead tree trunks were blocking the trail. It was in the neighborhood of a dozen. When I got to what turned out to be the last one, I couldn’t help but wonder how they’d deal with it. It was a giant trunk.
There were very few people on the trail. No faster hikers passed me on my way up, and I didn’t encounter anybody coming the other way until the last mile. I spent forty-five minutes at the lake in solitude.
My next meeting with the trail crew was at the large trunk. I could hear them before I saw them: the “thok thok thok” of wedges being hammered into wood. When I got there, they had managed to cut nearly through the 31″ trunk. I arrived unnoticed and eavesdropped for a minute. When they spotted me, they directed me around their work and onto the trail below. I turned to look up at them and immediately moved on: when they completed the cut, a large length of this trunk would roll down the trail to where I was standing.
Not long after, they passed me on their way back to the trailhead. The leader was now feeling chatty. “We cleared all the deadfall!” I told him I was impressed with how much work they’d done. I didn’t think they’d get that far, and I was impressed that they had a (relatively) easy answer to the big obstruction. He then told me his plans for the next week: clearing more trails just like they did today, starting at another giant log blocking another trail in the ENW, 5.9 miles from the trailhead.
Big thanks to the volunteers with the Eagle Summit Wilderness Alliance for maintaining the trail.
Looking Up Gore Valley
Deluge Lake
Today’s Beer
Deluge Lake
Collapsing Snowbank
Mount of the Holy Cross (19 miles distant)
I was expecting to be a bit faster on the hike out than my rather glacial pace of the morning. I’ve never been that much faster going out/down than in/up, but given the steepness of this one, I figured there’d be no way it would take as long. I was right. It took me six minutes less to hike back. Okay, there was a short break to refill my water bottle, and a couple of minutes chatting with the crew. Still, surprisingly slow.
