Snowmass Lake: Thirty-Nine Years Later

My husband Dave and I planned to celebrate my birthday this year by trekking around Mont Blanc. We’d only carry a daypack and stay in well-appointed lodges just off the trek which stretched over eighty miles through France, Switzerland, and Italy. At night, we’d eat some yummy dinners and drink local beer. Our trekking company would transport our overnight luggage to our accommodations. Then COVID19 hit. Our June trip to Europe was canceled.

“So, what do you want to do for your birthday?” Dave asked.

“What could we possibly do in Colorado to come close to matching our planned European trek?” I responded.

“How about backpacking to Snowmass Lake?” Dave claimed that for decades I’ve told him how much I wanted to return to the lake because of an office backpack. But a backpack to the lake wasn’t possible thanks to my injuries from a 1993 car accident, and the eighteen-mile day hike was just too long for us baby boomers. Dave understood the area’s beauty as he’d backpacked there the day before he and a buddy climbed Snowmass Mountain in 2013.

“Let’s go for it,” I told Dave. After all, I’d resumed backpacking last year after a decades-long backpacking hiatus.

For the past thirty-nine years, I’d wanted to return to Snowmass Lake thanks to fond memories of gorgeous scenery; a nice, dirt trail; and a good time. I never even considered whether the hike would disappoint this summer because of the images etched in my mind of the trail and countryside.

We’d leave our Labrador retrievers, Ranger and Betty, with friends because regulations required that they be leashed the entire backpack, which could be hot. Both hate the heat.

It was the spring of 1981 when one of my colleagues asked if anyone was interested in backpacking from Crested Butte, over a couple of passes, to Snowmass where we all were scheduled to attend the annual District Attorneys conference. The idea sounded fantastic to me— I had fallen in love with backpacking just two years prior. A few of us signed up for the backpack only to learn that the passes were snowed in. Our plans changed to a backpack over snowless terrain to near some beaver ponds, about a mile and a half from Snowmass Lake.

Our group of two women and seven men decided to carpool from Golden, CO to the trailhead. To save room in one of the carpool vehicles, I arranged for my good friend and colleague Roberta, also my roommate at the conference hotel, to bring a suitcase with my clean clothes with her to the conference. She’d check in on the same afternoon that us backpackers would arrive at the Snowmass hotel.

At the trailhead, our group further consolidated our gear to pack only essentials in our backpacks, all of which were heavy, thirty pounds, and up. A few of the guys also carried fishing poles.

The trailhead was devoid of any vehicles when we arrived that June morning. We headed out, and soon were hiking on a fairly level dirt trail close to a rushing Snowmass Creek. Small aspens and bushes punctuated the borders of open meadows. The scenery was spectacular and the hiking, easy. Several miles in, we began to climb after the first switchback which took us high above the creek. I recall thinking that the trail was steep and felt grateful when it leveled off. We hiked over talus for what seemed too long. And we trudged on.

Finally, we approached a grove of trees and learned we had reached our camping destination off the trail with plenty of room for several tents and a large fire ring. We set up camp and ate our rations. Our group consisted of five deputy district attorneys, the Assistant District Attorney as our 50ish leader, two IT guys, and one process server. But that night, we were all just backpackers. The bonding had begun.

The next morning, most of us decided to hike, without packs, to Snowmass Lake. That meant continuing up the trail, crossing Snowmass Creek over logs to reach the far side of a lake, and hiking up through the woods for another mile plus.

I stared at the logjam and knew I had to cross it. But would I fall into the rushing water? We relied on our youthful balance as we carefully stepped on each log spread across the lake’s confluence with the creek. Thankfully, we all made it across without falling in, and hiked up the trail only to encounter a second obstacle— knee-high-deep snow! Looking back, I realize that youth was on our side as most of us were in our 20s or early 30s, and nimbler than we are today. We plodded on and finally reached the gorgeous lake.

That night we ate fresh-caught trout around the campfire and just may have indulged a bit too much in libations that some brought. One of us accidentally fell into the campfire after becoming a bit tipsy but was pulled out, unharmed. Most of us designated the following day as one of rest— reading by the creek or just plain relaxing— before our trek back to the trailhead the following morning.

We congratulated each other when we reached our vehicles and took off our heavy packs. Then we drove a quick ten minutes up the hill to our hotel where showers awaited. All of us looked forward to showers and clean clothes before attending the welcoming conference party scheduled for that evening.

At the hotel check-in, I received a message from Roberta. She’d decided to drive up early the next morning to the conference so she could give a ride to a fellow deputy district attorney who, I thought, she had a slight crush on. OMG! No clean clothes. All mine stunk from our campfires. (No wick off, quick-drying clothes in those days!)

Thankfully, my colleagues took pity on me and rounded up some clean clothes that sort of fit. No shoes but I could wear my boots or go barefoot. I chose the latter.

My clothes arrived the next morning. Roberta and I somehow remained good friends.

Thirty-nine years later, the same trailhead looked different. Cars jammed the parking area and lined the ingress road. The path of old was blocked off by a locked gate. The trail started to the south and then west up through some woods, high above the meadows that we’d hiked through so many years ago. The trail seemed different, not just at the beginning but later on. Then it hit me. All the trees and shrubs had grown! Very tall! Fewer vistas!!

When Dave and I rounded the corner and started up the dreaded switchback, I mentally braced myself for a long, steep climb. But it wasn’t that steep or maybe my perspective had changed after living in the mountains for the last fourteen years. We crossed a couple of patches of talus and farther down the trail, I spotted our 1981 camping area—off the trail and under some very, very tall spruces and pines. Next came the beaver ponds that looked somewhat abandoned.

Farther on, we turned to cross the creek well before the logjam of old. That was a pleasant surprise because the new logjam looked stable, thanks to trees downed by a recent avalanche, and offered little risk of us falling into the creek. The crossing was tedious but easy, even with our backpacks.

We hiked on a good and well-used trail adjacent to what had been a lake until we reached the snowless forest and climbed through the woods. Snowmass Lake— our destination— seemed farther than I had recalled.

The lake’s beauty didn’t disappoint. However, Dave and I were aghast when we looked for a place to settle for the next two nights. Tents were everywhere. We had never backpacked to an area that had so many tents or people! The parking lot had given us a clue as to what to expect but even so, I was floored.  A good twenty-minutes later, we selected a fairly private spot in the woods to camp. It meant walking through another campsite and climbing over logs to get to it. I wasn’t too crazy about the spot when I looked up and saw nearby very tall dead trees. But wind wasn’t predicted, so I just hoped we’d see the next day. We pitched our tent there, on the mostly level ground, and hung our food in a bear bag without incident.

The next day, Dave and I hiked about five miles to Buckskin Pass, with an elevation gain of 2,000 feet plus. It’s one of the passes on the nationally known, twenty-six-plus-mile Four Pass Loop but fortunately, we only encountered a few people on the trail and pass. The hike was spectacular and a memorable one for Dave as he pointed out the peaks he’d climbed and the routes he had taken. Frankly, I was glad that he’d completed these climbs— all of Colorado’s 58 fourteeners— especially when I saw how dangerous they appeared. The hike was a treat for both of us.

The backpack and hike this year were a trip down memory lane for us. We’re sad that the area has become so popular but so grateful to have had another chance to enjoy the scenery and journey to the lake.

I didn’t think the trail to the beaver ponds was as spectacular as it had been years ago, perhaps because the vegetation had grown so much and the number of hikers we encountered. But this year’s backpack seemed even more special than the one thirty-nine years ago, perhaps because Dave and I shared so many separate memories and made new ones together as we explored the trail to Buckskin Pass and stunning scenery. The backpack was truly a wonderful birthday gift!

NOTE: Since our August backpack, I’ve confirmed that the trail had started west along some fairly level ground that is now closed off by a locked gate installed by a new property owner. The trail now starts to the southwest. The former ranch owner had allowed hikers to trek through his land to gain access to the forest service trail.

FEATURED PHOTO:  August 2020 morning view of Snowmass Mountain from Snowmass Lake.

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