Indian Peaks

August 4th, 2008

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Mitchell and Blue Lakes

For our last hike of the vacation, we made our first visit to the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area. We decided on a pair of shorter hikes to see a few lakes. The first took us to Mitchell and Blue Lakes. We started off from the Mitchell Lake TH at 6:30AM. The trail starts in the woods but quickly opens up to nice views of the distant peaks surrounding Blue Lake. We made it to Mitchell Lake in about 20 minutes. From there, the remaining 1.6 miles to Blue Lake is more rugged. It requires spotting a few cairns and has a couple steep spots, but it's still fairly easy. We reached Blue Lake a little after 7:30AM an hour after leaving the TH. It's a pretty lake surrounded by Pawnee Peak, Mount Toll, and Mount Audubon. The water had an interesting metallic look due to the surrounding rocks. We were alone on the way out, but we passed quite a few groups on our return.

Long Lake and Lake Isabelle

Our second hike started from the Long Lake TH about half a mile away. The parking lot was full so I dropped Sandy and Ali off and parked along the road a couple hundred yards from the lot. The destination was Lake Isabelle with Long Lake along the way. Most of the trail was fairly flat with a short steep section near the end. We made good time reaching the lake in about 40 minutes. I didn't see Ali and Sandy down by the lakeshore and continued a bit up the trail that leads to Pawnee Pass. It was a pretty section of trail that gained altitude quickly, but it didn't offer any clear views of the lake from above. We returned under increasingly cloudy skies finishing a little after 11:00AM. The hikes totalled 9 miles. Having only about 1000 ft total elevation gain, they can easily be done together in a single day. An alternative would be a loop over Pawnee Pass.

Hike Stats:


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