This is easily one of my favorite hikes of the year, both because it satisfies the ‘well-rounded adventure’ requirement and because of the amazing variety of terrain. It’s in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, which is accessed via 4th of July Road. Passing through the town of Eldora and riding up the 4th of July road is cool enough, and if you have a stout 4×4 you can mercifully knock a mile or so off of the 15 mile total. Depending on the weather, this may also prevent you from having to walk an appreciable distance through a giant puddle. Either way, you add a short but mildly technical off-road jaunt to your otherwise human-powered day. As icing on the cake, the final stretch deters most motorists, leaving the limited parking at the end of the road a pretty good bet.
Our day started off inauspiciously: drizzly and cold. Once the rain had more or less quit, we hit the trail. We were slightly disappointed to find ourselves in the company of large party whose crime was nothing more than excitedly talking amongst themselves, but it sort of tainted our wilderness experience for the first few miles: alas the trails must be shared! Eventually, they took a different fork than us and we seemingly had the wilderness to ourselves. Free at last!
Eventually, the rain totally stopped. It remained brisk, but the only further precipitation was the light, frozen variety. As we got further into the wilderness we passed bright aspens, plunged through dark evergreen forests, crossed expansive alpine meadows, stopped at more than one pristine lake, and finally climbed into the alpine tundra. You spend substantial time above treeline and get plentiful views of the mountains to the west, Winter Park to the south, and all of the terrain you’ve just crossed back to the east.
Once you’ve traversed the tundra and get within sight of Rollins Pass, it’s just about all downhill. Before long you’re traipsing back through the forest on the way back to the trailhead.
