I had the awful idea that a sunset hike at Walden Ponds would be the perfect weekday pick me up— we were almost eaten alive by mosquitos! Walden Ponds is a wildlife and bird sanctuary, with beautiful boardwalks and picturesque bogs. But, bogs = mosquitos from hell, so we ended up more or less trail running this 😂😂! Still a fun evening. I would recommend doing this easy hike during the day.
See the cloud of mosquitos Travis is walking through?
I’ve gotten a little behind on posting, but it was a hot weekend end of June! We went for an evening hike at Gross Reservoir Saturday night to beat the heat. Originally, we were planning on hiking to Twin Sisters from Gross Reservoir, a hike I found on Alltrails that requires parking at the reservoir. We walked down Lake Shore Drive as directed, but hit a “Things have changed” private property sign (see image below). So, we hiked back on the 4×4 road and changed our plans to hike around the reservoir.
Once we got back to the parking lot, we took one of the braided trails down some steep switchbacks to the shoreline trail. Then, we followed the thin shoreline trail around the side of the reservoir and back. The trail was pretty empty, although we did see a few evening paddle boarders. We have taken our kayak here before, it’s a great place to paddle that is usually not crowded.
I’m trying to get out for hikes more during the weekdays, after work in the evenings. Despite its’ close proximity, I’ve never hiked at Corwina Park before. For date night we did a quick hike before the rain came into the front range. Corwina Park is free, but the trailhead we were at had limited parking (enough for maybe 10 cars). At 5 PM, we snagged the last spot.
From the parking lot, there is one trail, Bear Creek. We took this narrow spur uphill for .8 miles to reach the junction with the panorama point trail loop. From the junction, we continued straight to complete the loop counter-clockwise. This method makes the hike a little steeper, so for a more gradual incline I would recommend going clockwise. This trail has definitely seen heavy use— lots of sections had significant erosion. The top featured some nice look outs of the surround mountains in Evergreen.
I have wanted to hike Thunder Pass ever since we saw it from American Lakes in State Forest State Park last September (see previous post). Thunder Pass is a trail that connects State Forest State Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, allowing you to hike between. We started this hike from our campsite, Valley View, but most hikers from Rocky Mountain take the LuLu City Trail from the Colorado River Trailhead (see previous post). The LuLu City route is about 3 miles shorter, one way. Since we were already in the mountains, our fastest route was to follow the Grand Ditch Trail to the Thunder Pass turn off.
From our site, we hiked down to the Grand Ditch and followed that for 5.1 miles. It was flat, wide and easy. Since the Ditch is packed down as a road, it was a little hard on the feet / hips as opposed to the soft dirt of most trails. One service vehicle passed us on the road, but other than that we did not see anyone. We passed the turn offs for Lake of the Clouds, LuLu City and some backcountry campsites. Finally, we reached the turn off for Thunder Pass, marked by a wide fallen tree over the ditch.
From the Thunder Pass turn off, the elevation started, gaining almost the entire 1500 ft. This 1.7 mile spur follows a creek uphill for a little over a half mile, before the Box Canyon backcountry site. Once you pass the sites, the trail opens to a meadow, where you hike over the creek and start the ascent again. The last .7 miles is in alpine tundra, with panoramic views of the mountains. The last quarter mile had a snow field we had to walk across, but the snow was soft and manageable without traction. The summit (about 11,800 ft) is marked with boundary signs between the two parks. The surrounding peaks were still pretty snowy — American Lakes looked like they were still partially frozen. From the top it’s another 1.4 miles to American Lakes, so I opted to eat some lunch and relax. We only saw five hikers the whole time! Highly recommend this hike.
Follow Grand Ditch Trail to LaPoudre PassGrand Ditch Trail— 5 miles of flat and wide The last 1.7 miles is steep— 1500+ elevation gainThe crewOnly snow field left on the trail, manageable without spikesFinal stretchStatic Peak (left) and Nohku Crags (right), looking towards American Lakes Looking into State Forest State ParkLooking back towards Rocky Mountain National Park
After our pack in, we set up camp and hung out in our tents during a passing storm. Once our friends had all hiked in and set up camp, we went to explore our backcountry surroundings. From our campsite, we hiked back down to the Grand Ditch Trail, following the wide path to the right. For more information in the Grand Ditch, check out this website: https://www.nps.gov/articles/effects-of-the-grand-ditch.htm
The Grand Ditch trail is an old flat dirt road (not open to the public) that follows the river ditch for a total of 14 miles. We just hiked about a mile and a half south in the trail, passing an old turn off for a closed backcountry site. The trail features beautiful Mountains and was easy to hike.
Wide, flat old road Plenty of scenic look outs Grand river ditch follows the trail the whole time
Annie Hikes 500 Miles 