Mountain Hiking

Coney Lake Is A Beautiful Alpine Jewel

Coney Lake is tucked away in a valley just north of Mount Audubon in the Indian Peaks Wilderness.  From the Audubon ridgeline, it seems a long way down and far away, but an approach from Beaver Reservoir or from Coney Flats makes this jewel accessible after all, and a real escape from our recent summer heat.

About 1.2 miles in, there is an intersection with the Coney Flats hiker/ski trail, which is a little shorter and more level than the road route looping up to the south.  The path rises gradually, but there are ponds and flats on either side, and many streams were running freely in little beds that would be dry later in the year. Frogs were calling “ree-eep, ree-eep,” some high-pitched and some lower, back and forth to one another.  A quarter moon lay pale white against a spotless blue sky.

Coney Flats is a secondary trailhead for 4-wheel-drive vehicles, located on the banks of Coney Creek and against the dramatic background of Sawtooth Mountain and the Continental Divide.  The trail crossed the creek on plank boardwalks that were partially under water in the full spring flow.  The splashing and leaping water seemed rich and lush, compared to the baked and dusty dryness down in the foothills.  Then the Coney Lake Trail took me to the left and into Coney Creek valley.  The trees were smaller now, and the snow cover was more continuous.  There were occasional remnants of old ski tracks in the wet and firm snow, just a few blurred reminders from the season past.

My map showed the trail following the north side of the creek, but it actually crosses over to the south.  However, I soon lost the trail completely under the snow, and I simply walked up the valley.  The snow became six and even eight feet deep, but I strode across the heavy surface without snowshoes and rarely broke through.  I turned out of the trees and up onto the talus slopes reaching up to the Audubon ridge and had lunch against a lichen-covered boulder.  I couldn’t see the lake yet, but I could hear the rush of water as it left the lake and tumbled down its bed.

I finally mounted the talus at the foot of the lake and listened to the deep gurgling of water flowing among those rocks just a few feet below me.  The surface flow from the lake came next and formed a tumbling waterfall over stones and cobbles, and Coney Lake itself was a beautiful steel blue with a wind-textured surface.  Behind the lake, the dark, stone slopes and cliffs of Audubon, Paiute, and other unnamed heights of the Divide reached up, patchy with snow, a deep blue sky above, itself patchy now with white and shining clouds.

From the map, I could see that there was an Upper Coney Lake high among those rocks, but from the edge of Coney, it looked as though I was at the end of the world—at the end of this particular valley, anyway.  Walls rose high above me all around marking that end, and each little crease and couloir was blocked with snow.  In July or August, one of those routes might invite me to go deeper and higher, but not until then.

Originally published in the
Daily Camera, p 8B, 6/10/2006.