Mountain Hiking

by Harold Sears

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Why Hike?

In and Around
Boulder, Colorado

Front Range and East

Central Foothills

Back Range and
Indian Peaks

Rocky Mt. Natl. Park
South

Rocky Mt. Natl. Park
North

Farther Afield

Back East
In the Carolinas

Happy Highways

This trail begins in cool fir forest. I crossed several streams and small but musical cascades. As I climbed, more and more clearings appeared. There are long white waterfalls across on the south wall of the valley. Sharp peaks with snow patches jut upward. I passed marshy spots with Indian Paint Brush and Columbine.

About half way up, I rose onto a broad and level platform. Here, streams trickle among hummocky grass and through pools snaked with snail tracks in the bottom mud. I was in a flat-bottomed bowl, sort of a wok, with steep ridges and peaks rising all around and a spout out to the east. Some of the peaks are named; many are not. It is a kind of bathing bowl -- nothing as utilitarian as a bathtub. I was mountain bathing, immersed in the surrounding mountains, soaking spa-like in the peaks, slopes, in rich grandeur, the air and light caressing sauna-soft and cool.

Here at the treeline, the pines and firs are short, stunted, and twisted into low shrubs. The Arapaho Glacier Trail turns right and up onto the slopes of South Arapaho Peak, and the remains of the old Fourth Of July Mine lie scattered about -- pits, waste heaps, and timbers, a 15-foot-long rusted boiler, and a couple of geared winches.

I circled counter-clockwise up the head of the valley and onto Arapaho Pass. Here, Arapaho Pass Trail continues over the pass, more to the north, and Caribou Pass Trail heads more to the west. I made a brief visit to Lake Dorothy -- must be one of the highest lakes along the Divide -- continued along the narrow ledge under steep cliffs of Mt. Neva and above almost as steep talus plummeting to Caribou Lake to the north. I crossed over Caribou Pass, and dropped down onto the Western Slope.

It is wetter over here. The tundra is green, and the mosquitoes are out and searching. I usually dress to cover up -- I may be a little warmer than is strictly comfortable, but I go through the day much less bitten and burned.

I dropped into wetter woods, turned east onto the Columbine Lake Trail, and climbed into Meadow Creek Valley. Such a marked descent and then substantial ascent is a little frustrating. It would have been nice to circle directly from the pass, around to the lake, without walking a mile below it and then a mile back up again. Well, on my return, I would try to cut across that long, acute angle.

I climbed through woods and rocks, up onto marshy flats. There were pools, springy ground under foot, and great rounded slabs of granite. I climbed up around a corner, and there it was, bright green and sparkling water, slopes of brighter green, scattered firs, and the impossible western cliffs of Neva. I wandered along the shore and up onto rocky viewpoints. This was Columbine Lake, but there wasn't so much Columbine as Elephant Head.

Finally, I took a compass bearing due north and made my way more directly back to Caribou Pass. I climbed onto rocky ridges and down into marshy hollows, around great piles of rock, up and down, but steadily and quickly up to the trail just below the pass. This bushwhack isn't particularly obvious from either direction, but it trimmed two miles off my return trip.

Columbine

At the half-way plateau.

Lake Dorothy, below Mt. Neva.

Caribou Pass Trail over to Caribou Pass.

A marmot trailside.

Onto the Western Slope.

On Columbine Lake Tr., looking east toward Neva.

Columbine Lake.

And north, back toward Caribou Pass.

In Boulder, take route 119 west to Nederland. Turn left at the traffic circle onto route 72 for 0.6 mi. Turn right onto route 130 and drive through the town of Eldora. The paved road ends and there is an emergency phone 4.0 miles from the highway. At mile point 4.8, turn right onto Hessie Rd. and drive 4.0 miles farther to the trailhead. The trail begins north of the upper parking lot.

Click on the thumbnail above for a piece of my trail map. A trail map for all of Boulder County is available from the Boulder Area Trails Coalition (find link on home page).

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Cautionary Note -- If any of the hikes described on this site sound like something you would like to do yourself, please use good judgment and prepare yourself according to your skills, your interests, and the season. What was fun for me under one set of circumstances might not be fun or even safe for another under other circumstances. Do not consider these descriptions to be unqualified recommendations.