The Tanager Blog

The boot shot is an age-old tradition. “See these boots? They got me here.” Here, in this case, is Frozen Lake, the upper most of the Crater Lakes in Colorado’s James Peak Wilderness. Above the lake is the Continental Divide, the line that runs up the Rockies and separates the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico watersheds. This is where I sat on Sunday afternoon around 1pm with my best friend from childhood, Matt Jordan. Hiking and backpacking is our favorite thing to do together, yet somehow this was the first hike we’d done together with our wives coming along.

The seasons are definitely changing up there. The star gentians on the left are always end of the season wildflowers, like the alpine gentians I mentioned last week. The tundra is turning an orange rust, the wind has extra bite, and the creeks are pretty low. Somehow, through this all, the elephantheads (above right) are in fine shape.

So here are the details on the hike. From Denver, head to Boulder and west to Nederland. Above 10 minutes south is a tiny hamlet called Rollinsville. From there, you drive a dirt road west all the way to the Moffat Tunnel, park, and climb southwest into the James Peak Wilderness. After 1.5 miles, the trail forks, and to get to Crater Lakes you veer right and climb up into this hanging valley. There are two lower lakes and 1 1/2 upper lakes (a pond, really).

Matt sez: “long live Mountain Funk.”

Jenny and Hailey opted to play cards on the shore of one of the lower lakes, while Matt and I climbed up to Frozen Lake. The trail builders were clearly members of the Church of No Switchbacks: it went straight up and was pretty loose. Waterfalls are everywhere between these two lakes, and I wish I had better light to capture them (and more water…come back in mid-July, I guess). In fact, the light was pretty shoddy all day, but we didn’t get up there until 9am, so this was never meant to be a “photo trip” per se.

After the pond, the trail goes under a three-foot canopy of bristlecone pines. It is seriously like climbing into a pine cave. Go left and your head pops out the other side (where you can see the upper lake for the first time), and then you have to squeeze through this narrow passage while dried up branches scratch your calves. It is so cool.

Here is when Matt’s head popped out of the piney canopy.

Looks like he’s shopping in a Christmas tree lot or something.

To quote Matt: “a good time was had by all.”