With Skyler and I both moving on to adventures far distant from one another, we decided to do one more big hike before the upcoming year. Lone Eagle Peak towering to a fine point over Mirror Lake is an iconic image of the Rocky Mountains. The neighboring water body, Crater Lake, is another well-regarded destination in the Front Range. These were our goals.

We departed Denver for the Monarch Lake trailhead early in the morning on a Thursday. The drive to the town of Granby was one full of sharply curved mountain highways and dense fog banks rising off of the nearby Granby Lake.

The road turned to dirt outside Granby, and held its share of danger and gloom as we navigated narrow dam roads in the dense fog. Shortly before the trailhead, the landscape began to clear up, and the sun showed itself for the first time that day. We pulled into a roundabout parking lot which, despite the time of week, already harbored a fair number of cars.

We began hiking at about 8 AM. The trail itself started near Monarch Lake and followed near its shores for the first mile. Despite the number of cars, we passed few other hikers. The stripped raspberry bushes on the trail side served as indicator that others had been there, though. Beyond the lake, the trail followed a creek, and there were signs at each fork telling us to continue as such. Shrubs gave way to intermingled aspen and lodgepole pine forest as valley walls rose up beside us.

The skies played kind during this first half of the hike, with only intermittent clouds patterning the blue. We made great time, due in no small part to the lack of altitude gain early on. The fast-paced feeling of earth and rock underfoot was just what we needed for a bit of stress relief from our everyday lives.

The trail intersected with streams several times, and most of those crossings had bridges. The route overall was very well maintained, with just one section where a bridge had fallen over into the water. The work that had been put into this trail was a hallmark of its popularity, and so we considered ourselves lucky to have only encountered a handful of people after being several hours into the hike.

The steadily flowing stream at our side was periodically interrupted by small waterfalls, but at five miles we reached the full-fledged Cascade Falls. This series of four waterfalls filled the surrounding forest with its roaring, drowning out the birdsong and wind rustled vegetation. This feature alone could have placed this hike among the most scenic we had ever done.

After the waterfalls we passed a grove of willow trees before entering a broad glade. The valley sides were sharp, rocky and grey ahead, and it was only luck that I glanced to the far side of the meadow we stood in. There, standing in the tall grass, were several bull moose. They did not seem to have noticed us, or if they did, they did not care. Skyler did his best to snap a few shots, but their distance made it difficult. We stood and watched until they wandered into the trees and out of sight.

From the clearing the trail turned steep, and we made our final ascent with Lone Eagle Peak poking through the treetops ahead. Mirror Lake made its appearance quite suddenly at the top of a long uphill stretch. Lone Eagle Peak, in all its glory, stood almost to tall observe without moving ones head.

We gazed in awe at this vista for a long while before searching out the trail up to Crater Lake. It didn’t take long, and in less than half a mile we were at the shores of the much larger lake. Striations streaked the cliff sides around the water, and snow still clung to the rocks in many areas.

We returned to Mirror Lake for that last iconic shot of Lone Eagle Peak. A few backpackers were the only other ones there to witness the view that afternoon.

With storm clouds rolling into view on the horizon, we decided to start our return hike. While we had made good time to the lakes, we did not realize how sore we would be. The return hike involved much more time for breaks, more dragging of the feet, and a whole lot of time. The rain reached us before Monarch Lake was even back in sight, and we spent the last few miles hiking in wet shoes.

The highlight of this return hike was Skyler spotting a pine marten. Though he was unable to get his camera ready in time to take a shot, even catching a glimpse of one of these rare critters was something worth remembering. We returned to the car after 15 miles of hiking, excited with the adventure we had completed, and ready for whatever the next year might bring.

~Sky & Ty