Take a Walk
A Quest into the Wild
Bluebird Lake Rocky Mountain National Park
Distance: 12.44 miles (out and back) Elevation Gain: 2,974 ft. (net) Max. Elevation: 11,016 ft. Min. Elevation: 8,527 ft.
Date hiked: November 6, 2016
The cool evenings and brisk winds of fall brought us crunchy leaves beneath our feet and colors of brown and beige, but the snows we are so accustomed to this time of year in the high country are lacking and have left us unseasonably warm. Scant snowfall in many regions of the high country this year has extended summer/fall hiking conditions, and a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park was no exception. With no snow for our skis, we threw our hiking boots on once again and drove to Wild Basin, a gem in the vast expanse of the park. After a long, late morning drive, we arrived at the park. The entrance to the park and ranger station is approximately 20 miles from Lyons, CO on Hwy 7, and as a word of caution, there is very limited to zero cell service on this drive and throughout most of the hike. While this is a relatively nice opportunity to cleanse the soul from the distractions of politics, email, etc., it doesn’t help with worried family members waiting for a check in call. As we approached the entrance booth, there was no ranger on duty and a simple sign which read “please proceed.” We happily obliged and followed the summer narrow, dirt road all the way to the summer parking lot. On a typical summer weekend, there is absolutely no parking in this relatively small lot after 8:00 am, thus we were thrilled to have the opportunity to choose a space on this fall return trip. The hike to Bluebird lake follows the same path that leads to Copeland Falls, Calypso cascades, Ouzel Falls and Ouzel Lake that we visited on a few earlier trips. As you can imagine, there are several attractions to distract from the altitude gain along the way. Seen below are photos from the first few miles of our trip including Calypso Cascades, as well as information on ease and distance to each point of interest.
Calypso Cascade: 3.6 miles Round Trip (Easy)
Ouzel Falls: 5.2 miles Round Trip (Easy)
Ouzel Lake: 9.8 miles Round Trip (Intermediate due to distance)
Bluebird lake: 12.8 miles Round Trip (Intermediate due to distance)
Mount Sniktau, Front Range, 13,234 ft
We’ve driven by this unassuming peak on numerous occasions on our way up I-70 towards other mountains and adventures. Most of the time, we fail to even notice Sniktau as we focus our attention on 14ers, Gray and Torreys or lately, at the smattering of early season snow at Loveland. Nonetheless, Mount Sniktau is a ranked peak that hovers above 13,000 feet. With little time for a longer trek, we opted to give this short 13er hike a try last Saturday, October 29th. We began our journey from the small parking lot at Loveland Pass at approximately 11,990 feet above sea level. The lack of earlier season snow and unseasonable warmer temperatures resulted in a mostly dry trail for the majority of our hike, though the temperatures were quite cool as expected for late October. We began the hike by walking up a short set of stone steps followed by a quarter to half mile of steep sandy trail. Though the hike is only 3.8 miles RT, there is a significant amount of elevation gain in the short trip to the summit. Seen below are photos of first portion of the hike. Notice, you can see the one ski run currently open at Arapahoe Basin.
Unfortunately for us, dark snow-filled clouds begin to quickly engulf our route as we reached the first set of rock wind shelters and brief flattening of terrain. Our timing for reaching these shelters was perfect, as gusts of strong wind and sleet/snow began to fall. We were essentially sitting among rocks in white-out conditions. Several parties 10 minutes behind us turned around. We decided to wait for 10-15 minutes to see if conditions improved so we could continue to the summit or at least avoid an uncomfortable hike back to the car. Our patience ended up greatly rewarding us as hints of blue and warmth from the sun emerged to greet us after a short wait. With visibility on our side once again, we continued onward and upward. Seen below is the view to south where Grizzly peak can be found and the first glimpses of the false summit after the storm cleared (photos top to bottom).
Though we could see our path, the winds were now relentless on the ridge walk. Gusts of near 50-60 mph frigidly blasted us as we pushed our lungs and legs up the moderately steep incline. Thankfully, there were not steep or sheer drop offs to fear on this easy summit attempt since we held a genuine fear of being blown over. As we reached the top of the false summit, we found the first hints of snow among the rocky outcroppings of the trail. It was not enough to require the effort of putting on microspikes, but brought us hope that we may begin to see some normal weather soon for this time of year. There was another wind shelter on the false summit that we sought refuge in from the wind once again. Though it was filled with wind blown snow, it provided a bit of relief. Below are photos from the false summit and the interesting weather patterns we witnessed while on the peak.
From the false summit, we made the decision to embrace the gnarly winds and brave the summit. It was only a short, steep jaunt away. We had to briefly descend into a saddle and then regain some of the elevation. Within 15 minutes, we were on the summit. We saw spectacular views of Grays and Torreys but unfortunately also of I-70 to our north. We spent an ever so short amount of time on the summit due to cold temperatures and winds but at least we had it to ourselves.
The hike to Mount Sniktau proved to be beautiful, short, and adventurous. Despite the lack of complete detachment from society that Mount Sniktau offered, it still provided a quick high altitude mountain fix. With the weather we encountered, it morphed from what could have been an uneventful hike, into an alpine enterprise that reminded us of why we pursue these treks as often as we can. Overall, we hiked about 3.8 miles and gained around 1,600 feet in elevation according to our GPS. If you have the time for a shorter, alpine hike to tag a 13er, Mount Sniktau isn’t a bad way to spend the day.
Two Rivers Lake, Lake Helene, Odessa Lake, and More
Miles: 8.0 (out-and-back) Max Elevation: 11,000 ft Min Elevation: 9,473 ft.
The weather was iffy this weekend, and we didn’t want to get ourselves stuck on a 14er during a thunderstorm; so we opted to head over to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) and explore some lakes. The fact that we hadn’t been to RMNP in a while also motivated us to go exploring. After some discussion, we agreed we’d head out towards Lake Helene and have a look around.
The easiest route to Lake Helene is from the Bear Lake trailhead, which we know well, since it serves so many valleys, lakes, waterfalls, cirques, and mountains. From the Bear Lake trailhead you walk north around Bear Lake very briefly until you see a turn off to the right with a signpost for Flattop Mountain, Fern Lake, Odessa Lake, and Bierstadt Lake (seen below). You gain some elevation here in the first part of the trail, which is heavily wooded and beautiful. The beginning of the trail is filled with Aspens, and as you continue it becomes dominated by pines. The trail is a very nice, well kept path, which was a welcome change from some of the rough trails and bushwhacking we’ve been doing.
You come to a few junctions along this path, to get to Lake Helene, you keep following the signs for Odessa Lake and Fern Lake. You can veer off at any of these junctions and they will take you to Flattop Mountain or even to Lake Bierstadt. But the path is very well marked and the signs are good (seen below). As we continued we came to a few openings in the trees where we could see the gorgeous landscape below. Plenty of birds were out, as well as a multitude of ground squirrels, Albert’s squirrels, and some chipmunks. To add to the beauty, there were still flowers in bloom along the path. Eventually, we hit a rock field, which offered up a glimpse of Notchtop Mountain (the notch can be seen in the photo below).
As we made our way back into the forest, we came across the Sourdough campsite. Not very far past this sign is a spur that runs off to the left, which takes you to the Two Rivers lake. It could be easy to miss this turnoff, so we’ve included some pictures below to help. We had to bushwhack a little bit to get to the lake, but we did end up on the north bank and had a snack on some rocks. It is a gorgeous lake and we had it to ourselves.
After heading back to the main trail we continued for a very, very brief time until we came to multiple crossroads. The first fork in the road was a path that veered to the right and right up Joe Mills Mountain. We wanted to go up just a little bit to see the view, and we were glad we did. It was an amazing view of Notchtop Mountain and Flattop Mountain as well as the cirque below (see the image below). The second split was less obvious, and this is where you have to decide if you want to head to Lake Odessa or Lake Helene. The main trail obviously turns sharply to the right and descends, but there is a small path that continues straight towards Notchtop. If you want to see Lake Odessa, then take the main trail, but we wanted to see Lake Helene, and thus took the path less traveled.
As we continued on the path, we came to a small stream crossing. Just above the stream was Lake Helene. We reached it and explored briefly. There were some ducks quacking and it was very nice, but for some reason we were called towards the cirque above. As we headed onward toward the bowl, we ran into some nice people from Florida. The husband told us there was a nice view on a small game trail to the right, and so we explored and found a very nice little overlook. We stopped here to consider our next move. Now, if you stop here and return, we’d say this is an easy hike; but if you continue to the alpine lakes it becomes an intermediate hike.
We had an inkling that there were some alpine lakes up in that cirque, and we wanted to get our dose of scrambling in for the day, so we began up a large rock band towards the bowl under Notchtop and Flattop. It was a lot of fun, and very quickly we were able to see all three lakes we were thinking about: Two Rivers, Helene, and Odessa (seen below). After a little bit of route finding and scrambling we found the first of our two unnamed alpine lakes (first lake picture below). We decided to look over the small ridge to see if there was another lake, and low-and-behold, there was. It was quite surreal standing in the cirque, and we heard some rockfall coming from the south in one of the gullies. We also heard some yells coming from Notchtop mountain, but couldn’t see anyone at first. Below are some pictures.
We spent a little time looking at the face of Notchtop and after some examination we found the climbers. The camera we had did not have a good zoom on it, so the quality is poor, but you can see two figures on the ledge working their way to the notch. Lisa Foster in her monumental work on Rocky Mountain Nation Park claims that the route up can be kept to a class 4; however, all detailed routes we’ve found so far are at least a class 5.7 with up to 5.10d variations. It was late in the day, and weather was rolling in, so we hope they got off safely. The mountain has peaked our curiosity, and we may go back and explore Notchtop later.
On the way back down, we took a different route by veering to the right and descending a small, friendly gully. It was pretty, and we had views of the lakes for much of the way down. At the base we found the Florida hikers again, who had hung out there for quite some time. We discovered they were feeling the altitude and trying to rest up and decide where to go next. This is just evidence that even at 10,000 ft. AMS can hit you. We talked to them for a little bit, they were very nice, and then headed on down. Once we were back on the main path, it was an easy hike out. Once we were close to Bear Lake and the Aspens started to reappear, we noticed that the leaves were beginning to change. Hopefully, we will get back up again the next few weekends and watch the colors of Autumn appear and light up the mountains. Below are some pictures from our return and a gallery below.
Missouri Mountain, Sawatch Range, 14,067 feet
The days continue to get shorter as we progress through the month of August. There is a sense of urgency in the air to attempt our final summer mountain summits before the sleet and snow replace the warm bright rays of the Colorado sun. One last check in on Mountain Forecast last Friday evening revealed a welcome change in the weather report for much of the Sawatch Range for Sunday August 14th. This was a welcome surprise as much of late summer has been plagued with vicious mountain thunderstorms that have thwarted our climbing and hiking plans. We were unable to leave early on Saturday due to work and school obligations, so we needed to find something close enough to Denver to minimize our driving through the dark. We ended up deciding on an attempt of Missouri Mountain which is part of the Collegiate peaks in the Sawatch Range. The standard Northwest Ridge route from Missouri Gulch appeared to offer us a long, scenic hike followed by a long class 2 ascent along a ridge line to the summit and seemed like a good choice for a last minute plan.
We left Denver late afternoon on Saturday and even stood in the parking lot a few minutes debating on whether to enjoy a relaxing evening at home watching the Olympics or whether to hit the road for our last minute adventure. Our need for excitement and fulfillment in the outdoors outweighed our desires for comfort, and we set out towards the Missouri Gulch TH. The trailhead is located off of Chaffee County road 390 (rough dirt 2WD road) which can be found by driving 20 miles south of Leadville on U.S. 24. We noted the exact location of the TH a few weeks earlier as we passed it on the way to Winfield to reach Huron Peak. When we reached Leadville that evening, it was really cold, like 34 degrees cold. Though we had planned to set up camp near the TH, the dark and cold led us to a roadside motel called Mountain Peaks Motel. Not to say that we were not appreciative of the last minute room availability and hospitality of the front desk, but this little motel was a little more rough around the edges than we were accustomed to staying. At times, we wondered if we would have been happier in the woods in our tent. Nonetheless, the night passed quickly, and the 4:45 am alarm startled us awake in the early morning darkness.
We dressed for the trail and had a quick breakfast of carbs (cheese danish or muffin anyone?) and headed out in cold morning air. We reached the trail head in about 35 minutes, and it was already full of cars by 6:00 am. We found a nearby spot on the side of the road just outside the main parking area and began our journey. The Missouri Gulch TH is very popular during the summer as it is not just the start for one 14er, but three. All hikers follow the Missouri Gulch trail for approximately 2.1 miles before the trail splits. Most hikers (based on data from the Colorado 14ers Initiative) choose to veer left and head up the steep but short trail to summit Mt. Belford and Oxford while the rest continue right to the Elkhead Pass trail that leads towards Missouri Mountain. Seen below are photographs from the start of our journey as we passed through the steep forested switchbacks. There were a few river and creek crossing to navigate on this hike.
We gained a rapid amount of elevation in those first two miles, and the steepness of the switchbacks was relentless until we reached the remnants of an old cabin near 11,300 feet. At this point, we exited the forest and to our delight, the dramatic rise in elevation ceased for a while. The colorful delights of the alpine valley could not yet be revealed to us as the sun was still hidden behind the mountains. We were still cold in the early mountain air. We passed one group of hikers through this area that veered towards Mount Belford, and then we had solitude on our climb until we reached the ridge. While, it was too dark to get photographs of this area on the ascent, the photographs below show this area of the hike on our return.
We continued to follow the trail over a creek (or two) and up a small hill to reach the Elkhead pass trail junction at 12,600′ feet. Here, we followed the sign right to Missouri Mountain. It was time to start getting more aggressive with our elevation gain now. We hadn’t studied the pictures of the summit very well prior to our summit attempt so we assumed we were hiking to a point directly above us known as Point 13,784′. As depicted by its name, that peak is not above 14,000′ feet and was not our destination. We had a nice long, ridge hike/climb to get to our summit instead. It was probably for the best that we thought we only a short distance to go. It would have been quite discouraging to realize how much further we had left at this point in the journey. The terrain began to change from a nice path to a talus and large boulders as we ascended higher. The talus slope had some slight exposure in places that normally wouldn’t have phased us one bit, except that much of this portion of the trail was slanted down the hill and filled with loose scree. We tried our best to make quick work of this section, but as we approached 13,000′ feet our lungs at a bit more work to do that slowed us down. Seen below are photos as we continued towards the saddle between Point 13,784′ and Point 13,930′.
Once we reached approximately 13,700 feet at the saddle we now realized where Mount Missouri’s summit was located. We had a nice long ridge hike ahead of us (almost a mile). We followed the rough trail up and down loose scree. We would gain some elevation and then proceed to immediately lose it again. Much of the trail skirted away from the ridge proper to keep the route to class 2. As we neared the final pitch to the summit we encountered what was known as the crux of the route. To keep the level to difficult class 2, the trail drops down 20 feet from the ridge proper. On our ascent, we followed the path and down climbed a brief bit of rock to reach the steep slanted trail. While, the down climb was not problem, the terrain it led us onto was awful. The trail was very slanted and loose, and it led down a steep gully. We had to take the utmost care to cross this section without slipping. Seen below are photographs.
After the precarious gully crossing, we quickly climbed up the 100 remaining feet of loose steep trail to the Missouri summit. The weather was still perfect, and we enjoyed a very long, relaxing break at 14,067 feet. We chatted with a couple of hikers on the summit and took each other’s photographs. After they began their descent, we stayed a few more minutes to bask in the solitude. Seen below are photographs from the summit.
We started to head back down just after 11:00 am as we noted several other parties beginning the long ridge walk. The loose scree was much worse descending than ascending, and we had to carefully watch our footing. When we reached the “crux” of the route we opted to take the class 3 route up and over the ridge proper rather than the rotten, loose gully. The rock here was stable, and there were plenty of hand holds but there was also some exposure. Unfortunately, the “crux’ of the route seemed to cause quite a bit of bottleneck. Climbing parties both ways took their time deciding which way to go, and we had to wait a bit to get back across. A few climbers that chose the class 3 route up, took 15-20 minutes to get across what should have taken 3-5 minutes. We jokingly nicknamed this brief difficulty of the route the “Hillary step” after the infamous vertical rock face on the route of Mt. Everest that frequently forces climbers to wait there turn for inconvenient and dangerously long periods of time. Seen below are photos of the return.
After we got over this obstacle, the scree fun resumed. It took us longer than anticipated to navigate the steep portions of the trail down the ridge. We slipped and slid back down the ridge to the saddle and began our long ascent back to the trail head.The terrain was very reminiscent of descending Mt. Bross. We briefly paused at an incredible overlook just above the saddle. Seen below is a photograph of the overlook.
After we reached the first trail junction, we took our time on the descent and enjoyed the warm sunlight and colorful wildflowers. We were still enjoying blue skies through the valley. Seen below are photos of our descent and looking back towards towards Missouri and the ridge we had just climbed.
We reached the truck at about 2:00 pm after almost 11 miles and 4,600 feet of elevation gain on the trail. We took our time on the descent and enjoyed the wonderful, calm weather. Our moving time was right around 5 hours and 30 minutes. The hike through Missouri Gulch towards the Elkhead pass trail junction was long but beautiful and allowed us to find some solitude in nature. The ridge hike that kept us hiking for almost a mile at close to 14,000 feet was interesting but tough. We would have ranked this route higher if the ridge trail didn’t consist of so much loose, steep scree. Next time we plan to come back and summit Oxford and Belford, but we will probably try this more popular route on a weekday.
