Lake Isabelle up toward Pawnee Pass

July 20, 2011 Lake Isabelle Up toward Pawnee Pass

In the Brainard Lake area right out of Ward, CO 

Hiked 8.5 miles            Total Miles 120.4

After yesterday’s epic adventure today is gong to be kind of boring!  We know we will need to get up and get that lactic acid build up out of our system and have a recuperation day. We declared a “sleep until you wake up” day.  I woke up at 6 am…  I did not feel too bad considering I ached about everywhere you could ache last night.  Kathi was still asleep; I went out in to the living space of the cabin and started trying to stretch-out. It is amazing how far away those toes can get!  I got wondering how a couple of hours with a massage therapist might feel right now.  Instead I had brought a tennis ball along and decided I could apply my own version of deep muscle massage.  I got a good half hour of self applied deep muscle massage and stretching in before Kathi woke up.  Kathi said her knee was rather tender so I tossed her the ball. 

We needed to go on a recovery hike.  So we ate a leisurely breakfast and headed towards the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area by Brainard Lake.  It is very close to Ward, CO about an hours drive from Estes.  The road is very windy; it is part of the Peak to Peak drive in Colorado.  As we are driving we are so thankful that we went up Longs yesterday as the winds are blowing pretty steady at 20 miles per hour with some higher gusts.  The winds make the aspen tree leaves flutter and look very beautiful, but we are wondering how the Long’s climbers are doing today.  We are pretty sure there will be lots of people turning back at the Keyhole today.  Longs Peak has been reclassified from a hike to hike with a class 3 climb.  They did this as seven people died up on Long’s last year.  I suppose there were too many people thinking that all of the warning signs did not apply to them…Seriously, it is a climb.

Lake Isabelle is a lake that might seem familiar to some of you as it is used as the main picture on the Colorado map, brochures and in many books that may be laying around on coffee tables. 

You drive up all of the elevation and get out of your car at 10,500 feet.  The hike is a lovely hike along Long Lake then up past a roaring stream until you get your first vistas of the water fall coming out of a snow bridge from Lake Isabelle.  It seems almost as if the Forest service cut down a few trees to help improve the vista.  Shortly after this we meet a couple who might be in their mid 70’s.  We wait for them to come up a short patch of snow.  They stop and ask if we have been to Lake Isabelle before.  We say no.  They say we are in for a real treat, but there is lots of snow…

Outlet stream from Long Lake

Lake Isabelle on a very windy day.

We continue on up and like turning on the light switch we find out first big patch of snow.  Easily crossing this patch we get a good look at Lake Isabelle.  It is beautiful!  We hop around the end of the lake and take some great pictures.  If you decide to ever visit this lake go early in the summer because this lake is used as a water reservoir. They drain water from it and draw it down to a mud pit later in the summer.  The lake is very full now; some of the trail is well below the water line. There were even a couple of ice bergs floating in the very cold water.   Due to the very heavy snow fall this past May the lake is still shrouded in snow.  Some of the trail sticks out to sort of give you a clue on were you should be headed.  So we head across the snow always in search of the trail.  We find the trail junction for Pawnee Pass and think that we might be able to hike above tree line and get out of the snow.  So for about an hour and a half we searched and found bits and pieces of the trail, but mostly we found snow crossing after snow crossing.  The snow crossing would end, we would find ten feet of trail and the next snow field would begin.  We had to put on our new snow stabilizers and cross some real doozies of snow crossings.  By doozy I mean ice imbedded in the snow and a very steep angle.  The kind you look down below and run calculations on your ability to get yourself stopped before you crash into the rocks.

Putting on our ice stablizers

There is some guy in front of us that had crampons on.  He must know where he is going as he does not stop to find the trail.  He just heads straight up the snow field.  We finally throw in the white towel and give up trying to find where we are suppose to be headed.  The common sense in my mind would lead me to think we could have hiked up and out of the snow, by getting above the tree line.  But it is not so here!  We have no desire to head straight up the next snow crossing.  It would take us a series of switchbacks in the snow field to get up the cliff that is ahead of us.  We sit down and have lunch then turn back.  The gps is very handy in finding our way back.  At one point we do not want to re-cross a snow field that we felt was too dangerous, so we take a lower less severe angle at the crossing.  Well we crossed the snow field in a safer way, but then had to kick step our way back up to the top as we were sort of on an island and not close to where we needed to be.   Ok, well that idea did not seem any safer in the long run. 

Pawnee pass is still above us and we are headed to the next snow field.

Lake Isabelle from above.  Large chunk of ice still in the lake.

Good thing there was a log here as this creek was running hard and fast!

We manage to get ourselves back down to Lake Isabelle to have the second part of our lunch.  We are able to sit on a rock and watch two sets of two head up and over a large snow field towards what we understand is the way to Isabelle Glacier.  That would have been a second hike we could have done today, but we thought we could out hike the snow.  I think they will have snow until it starts to snow again this fall.  Some day we will go and see that glacier, but it will involve way less snow!  This place is beautiful and new.  It will be a wonderful place to visit when the snow is less, but before they drain it into a mud pit…

We head back to Estes it has been a wonderful recovery day!  Not a lot of calories burned or elevation gained, but slow steady revitalization of body and mind.