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The Maroon Bells National Wilderness in the White River National Forest
draws so much traffic that the road into the area is closed to private
auto traffic at 8 AM each morning. After that time only tour buses are
allowed in. The buses leave regularly from downtown Aspen and I presume
other towns in the area. We got up early and drove in, partly to avoid
the crush of people in the area near the trail heads and partly to get
these nice early morning riffle free reflections in the lakes.
Just outside Aspen toward the west on highway 82 is a turnoff onto Castle
Creek Road which leads past an interesting church and to a left turn at
a sign identifying the road to Maroon Bells. The drive in is about 10 miles
of wide two lane road winding along the hillside high above a small river.
As we neared the entrance we began to see some cars parked along the side
of the road in the few available places and began to wonder if we should
stop and walk the rest of the way. But since there seemed to be several
available places and essentially no traffic on the road we decided to persevere
to the end and come back down if necessary. Finally, at about 7:30, we
arrived at a chain across the road and a sign directing us into the only
operational parking lot. We found that several dozen cars had gotten there
ahead of us but were relived when a ranger (or perhaps it was one of the
many volunteer workers) directed us into the last available space.
Download a 316x480x24 bit color jpeg
image (50 Kb) of this picture of Maroon Lake.
The entrance area was being modernized to accommodate the large crowds
so there was heavy equipment grinding away on all sides, and as we started
to trudge up the sometimes paved, sometimes not, road we soon discovered
that this parking lot was a quarter mile below the paved area where the
buses stop later in the day. The key word here is 'below' since we were
still feeling the effects of our arrival at this unacustomed altitude less
than two days before. (I'm told the new parking areas are now complete.)
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The buses stop and turn around in a paved area that overlooks a wildflower
strewn meadow that slopes down to Maroon Lake. The guide book says this
lake is at 9,580 feet. It's on the left at the bottom of the meadow which
also stretches away to the right far up the hillside as seen in this image.
Several trails lead down to the lake which at this time of the morning
was glassy calm, reflecting the sky and dimpled with rings from feeding
trout. The rings are mostly in the deeper water toward the middle of the
lake and a sign forbids any floating devices, so fishing would seem to
be a futile effort. |
| We walked down to the almost deserted lake first, working our way around
to the lower end on the north side to get pictures of the mountains reflected
in the mirror smooth surface of the lake. Jennifer took this sequence of
pictures leading up to Crater Lake.
The trail we wanted leads across the meadow roughly parallel to the
lake but heading toward a grove of trees a little further up the hillside.
Crater Lake lies about a mile and a half distant and about 500 feet above
this point. You can walk over the pass to Snowmass Village along this trail
but that's seventeen miles...a little beyond our ability or interest. But
there were couples on the trail with backpacks of a size that clearly indicated
they were going some distance.
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Once into the wooded area beyond the meadow, the trail becomes rocky
and steeper. The woods are never very dense so it's always possible to
see the mountains that ring the valley. As with many of the mountains around
Aspen, the rocky open spaces reveal layer upon layer of redish rock tilted
at fairly steep angles. Presumeably these layers were once horozontal sediment
layers of an ancient ocean. At one point the trail has been cleared through
a recent rockslide, littering both sides of the trail with sections of
freshly cleaved flat rock.
I noticed what looked like a small fossil imprint of some half inch
long sea critter on one small rock. In the slanting morning sunlight it
seemed we could see the imprint of tiny bones and some sort of tail, but
it was so small it may have been just an accidental pattern in the rock.
Having been triggered to look by this chance observation, at various points
along the trail we did notice many rock imprints that looked much like
coral fans.
Wildflowers were blooming everywhere; this one along the dry rocky path.
Occasional clumps of blue columbine were also showing at this altitude
with clouds of pale blue asters mingled with other flowers in the lower
fields.
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| After climbing steadily along the well worn path and traversing several
fields of scattered rocks we topped a small rise to find Crater Lake nestled
in a valley just to our left. Several people were already walking around
near the shore and three boys were busily trying to fill the lake with
rocks from along its side. The lake was already shallow with the water
several yards below the outlet on the far side. Several people remarked
that the lake had contained much more water on their previous visits.
We stopped in some shade about 100 yards above the lake and sat on a
couple of rocks to drink some water and eat a bar of chocolate. We were
immediately joined by three chipmonks who were most insistent that we should
share, going so far as to climb up one's leg. Even though we knew better,
in the end they won and did get a taste of our chocolate. This one wasn't
happy when the piece was gone and grabbed my hand and nipped at my fingers.
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There was still very little wind and the view out the top end of the
lake was flanked by two mountains so after our snack we made our way down
to the lower end to try to get a photograph of sky and mountains and their
reflections in the lake. The images shown here were taken with my Canon
20-35 mm zoom somewhere near it's widest setting.
Download a 640x480x24 bit color jpeg
image (72 Kb) of this picture taken from the shoreline at the bottom
of Crater Lake.
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| Download a 640x480x24 bit color
jpeg image (96 Kb)of this picture. This picture was taken a little
way up the forested hillside above the lower end of the lake.
After spending about an hour at the lake we decided to start back down
as more people were arriving every few minutes and the clouds to the west
were beginning to look like they might brew up a rainstorm before too much
longer.
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People continue to arrive as we leave the basin of Crater Lake. The
rocky discent down to Maroon Lake (to the right in this image) starts just
over the rise. |
| The trip back down was less tiring but still required a couple of stops
to rest increasingly sore knees. We have found on previous mountain hikes
that on a steep rocky decent our right knees become quite painful after
a few hours of absorbing the shocks of a downhill walk.
About halfway down, we reached a branch point where we could choose
a more easterly trail that lead down to Maroon Lake instead of staying
up on the hillside. Since we were meeting an ever increasing number of
people on the trail we decided to try this alternate route, despite the
fact that the guidebook said it had a section of steep descent. This route
quickly led to a very nice view of the lower lake which was still several
hundred feet below us.
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| The steep section wasn't too bad and with a little slipping and sliding
this route quickly took us down to a lowland area surrounding the small
meandering stream that feeds the upper end of Maroon Lake. There are a
couple of bridges across the stream, but we found ourselves walking through
some tall brush and grass and through some dense woods that blocked most
of the views.
Jennifer took this picture of me stopping to check out a possible picture
of the lowland flowers against the mountain background.
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Since it was now near lunch time and the buses had been arriving for
several hours, we now found lots of people wandering around the upper end
of the lake. We had had enough of walking through shoulder high grass anyway
so we took a left branch in the trail that offered the promise of linking
up with he upper trail leading back to the parking area.
As we left this low area and walked upslope toward the trail we had
used on the outgoing leg we found ourselves walking along paths through
fields covered with wildflowers. This section of the Maroon Bell mountains
show true to their name in this image and provide a colorful background
to the wildflowers coloring the field and lurking in the foreground.
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| After a short break at the bus turn-around and a drink from the cooler
(provided by the forest service or perhaps the volunteers who help manage
the crowds), we headed back down the road to the car. A mule deer was munching
off to the side of the road in a patch of wild flowers while buses chugged
past and heavy machinery dug and scrapped less than 100 yards away. Our
picture taking did cause her some concern so she abondoned this field for
one even closer to the machinery. |
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Back in downtown Aspen after lunch and a nap, we enjoyed the sights
and sounds of the late afternoon. |
