Lake of the Clouds

July 29th, 2008

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Today we were looking for a medium hike. At 14 miles round trip, the hike to Lake of the Clouds might seem more than that, but it's mostly all trail with a modest elevation gain and fairly even grade. The drive over to the Colorado River TH from the east side took about an hour and 15 minutes. We started from the TH at 7:00am under clear skies. The route to Lake of the Clouds is divided into 3 sections: the 3.2 mile Red Mountain trail, 1.8 miles on the graded road that acts as a levee for the Grand Ditch, and the 1.3 mile Lake of the Clouds trail. The latter includes a quarter mile rock hop across a broad boulder field with a steep 400ft talus climb tacked on for good measure.

After a brief stretch (0.4 miles) along the Poudre Pass trail, we turned off onto the first leg of the main route. The Red Mountain trail is mostly in the woods and has modest slopes. There were a couple of rough spots where the trail crossed talus fields. The trail ends when it reaches the road that skirts the Grand Ditch. The trail climbs very steeply in the last 50-100ft to gain the road. The hike along the road is easy. It's slightly down hill, but it's so slight that is feels level in both directions. I suppose hiking on a road isn't ideal, but it made for quick progress and offered some nice views along the way. The Grand Ditch, while not the most inspiring water way, did provide a gentle background noise of flowing water. I kept thinking it would make an excellent flume ride. There is a sign marking the Lake of the Clouds trail, and there is a nice bridge across the Grand Ditch that provides access. The trail starts next to a large creek that tumbles down pretty cascades and empties into the Grand Ditch. The first mile is mostly wooded. It's a bit more rugged and a bit less refined than the Red Mountain trail. It gains about 750ft in that first mile. So it's definitely the steepest of the three sections, but it's not too bad as the gain is fairly evenly distributed. There was one place where the trail was spotty. It was a wet, grassy area and a bit muddy. The grass was matted, but there was no well-defined path that I saw. There were a few rocks deliberately placed as stepping stones, but they did more to show the way than to avoid the mud. After crossing a small creek, the trail quickly reformed and was easy to follow to its finish at the boulder field. The trail ended with a very short, steep climb up a ridge at the margin of the boulder field.

Sandy and Ali had reached the boulder field before me. They briefly followed some cairns and then stopped to look things over. There was a very large boulder field with 2 or 3 tenths of a mile between them and the talus climb to the lake. They sat down for a snack while and waited for me. Unfortunately, when I crested the ridge, they didn't see me, and I didn't see them. I spotted a couple cairns straight ahead and forged ahead towards the middle of the boulder field. They had gone a little bit to the right, and it was enough for us to miss each other. I continued a good way into the boulder field before they spotted me. After a bit of hollering, I got the message to turn back as they weren't wanting to continue to the lake. We were about at the limit of communication, and in a few minutes I think I would have been out of sight over another mound of boulders. I had made pretty good progress across the boulders. However, in my zeal to catch up, I had headed straight towards the route up between Mt. Cirrus and Hart Ridge rather than arcing left towards the slope up to the lake. It didn't matter since we were turning back, and I had a good time route finding in and out of the boulder field. It was 10:00AM when I turned around.

On the way back, along the dirt road, we spotted smoke over towards Trail Ridge Road. Through binoculars, Sandy thought it looked like colored smoke rather than a fire. She couldn't see any flames. We never heard about any rescues that day, so I don't know what it was. Otherwise, the return trip was easy, and we finished at 1:30PM.

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