Native Lake, Leadville CO

Native Lake With part of Mt Massive in background

8 miles
10,774 feet starting elevation 11,870 feet highest elevation
2,192' elevation gain 2,169' elevation lost
Total miles: 88.4

We took the Haggerman Pass road out of Leadville to the trailhead for our hike. A few more miles driving on the Improved Road and we would have been to the top of Haggerman Pass which was the original way people went from Leadville to Aspen. I can not imagine taking that road in some older car as again they had rumble strips for 3.6 miles of the way. My impression of this improved road is that it is about two inches skinnier than the wheel base of our car. There is a steep drop off on my side of the car, so I am hoping Kathi drives on the left side of the road.

When we arrived at the trailhead we were the only car. I really like to see people out on these hikes so I am always wishing for a good amount of people, but not so many that we have to go and find overflow parking.

The trail up and over the divide to Native Lake is a very nice well switchbacked trail. You can divide the hike into sevenths. Up 1,500 feet of switchbacks, across the divide -so no gain, down 800 feet of switchbacks, hang out at the lake, return back up 800 vertical feet of switchbacks, across the divide, and then back down the last 1,500 feet of switchbacks. Simple, easy relaxing. Yes, today Kathi and I decided we should have a "recovery day" after taking on Mt. Massive yesterday. So what better hike to do than one that we would have good views of what we did yesterday.

Mt Massive

Relax

Lake View

Who said hiking is hard work

When we arrive at the lake we tried to find a way around to the other side of the lake to a rock outcropping that we can see. After twenty minutes of looking we found the trail was simply lost in muck. There was no sense in getting wet and muddy to just gain a rock outcropping so we settled ourselves in on some nice rocks on the southeast end of the lake. Here we had a snack and then dug out some reading material that we brought along. We spent a good hour and half just lounging in the sun and reading. We had the whole lake to ourselves. Very relaxing.

Before leaving we ate half a lunch and headed back up the trail. Repeating or retracing our exacts steps that we took to get back to the lake. We had some nice views of Mt. Massive on one side of the hike and nice views of the Haggerman Pass going down the other side. 


The whole day we saw two bunnies, and just within a mile of finishing today's hike we ran into a young couple with baby in one of those hiking baby backpacks on the guys back headed out to the Lake. They were happy to hear that the trail was nicely designed with plenty of switchbacks.

Indian Painbrush with burnt log in background

After our hike we bounced back down the improved road and regrouped before going to "finish shopping" the main drag of Leadville. Last night's shopping adventure consisted of buying ice cream. Hmmm, that is the kind of shopping I can really get my mind and taste buds around! I wonder what we will find to eat, I mean shop, for today?

We stop at the Chamber of Commerce to pick up a driving tour map called the trail of the "Silver Kings". Leadville is a very interesting town with a very active mining past. As just a quick over view, gold was discovered in the California Gulch by some dude out panning in a stream in 1860. Over the next five years over 8,000 prospectors arrived to take their aim at striking it rich in the gold rush. During that time more than $4 million dollars of gold were panned or sluiced out of the area. The gold diminished, and the silver boom began in 1880. The town of Leadville flourished up to 30,000 people to become the second largest city in Colorado during that time frame. The town must have been a lively place as it had over 100 saloons, dance halls, gambling joints and brothels!

Silver began to diminish and the mining for zinc, lead and copper picked up. But most recently the mines of Leadville produce over half of the worlds supply of Molybdenum. Ok, if you are like me you have no idea what that is. Molybdenum or Moly as it is called for short, is a metal with many uses from steel making to agriculture. It is an important metal in both the industrial world and our daily lives. Used in the hardening of metals, fertilizers, and something to do with X-ray and mammography to name a few things.

Leadville has also played a large part in the training of the Tenth Mountain Division for WWII. The army needed a place to train men for winter survival and skiing for the war effort. The site of Camp Hale was chosen. In 1945 after two years of training for mountain survival and warfare, the Tenth Mountain Division was sent to Italy to spearhead an advance of the US Army. In a series of actions the Tenth Mountain Division breached the supposedly impregnable Gothic Line in the Apennines and secured the Po River Valley to play a vital role in the liberation of northern Italy.

By the time the Germans surrendered, the Tenth Mountain Division had suffered 992 lost lives and 4,000 wounded. This is the largest causality rate of any US division in the Mediterranean theater during the WWII War. For further info on this please visit: http://www.visitleadvilleco.com/camp_hale

This last winter, Kathi and I read a book called The Boys of Winter, The Life and Death of the US Ski Troops during WWII". Much of the training for those young men took place around the mountains of Leadville. Since we had been close to those areas last summer, we started doing some research to see what was available for us for hiking. Then when we found the area had two mountains at 14,000 well, who could resist bagging two?
Here is a direct link or if you want you can just borrow it from us :)
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