Long and Beautiful and Exhausting Cottonwood Pass Day

We're way behind in getting travel posts published because we were having way too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

August 10, 2023 

Cottonwood Pass is one of the reasons we decided to come back and spend a month in this area. It's located on highway 306, which starts in Buena Vista and heads west into the mountains and the pass. We had already traveled this direction when we kayaked at Cottonwood Lake a couple weeks ago. But this day we planned to drive deeper into the mountains for a long "Cottonwood Pass Day." Our first destination was a confusing trail head that had only a few parking spots. We felt a little lost when we parked along Highway 306 for a hike to Lost Lake. Some of the reviews for this hike said that this informal trail was closed. The trail headed straight up into the mountains, and we were happy to see that it was open.

The first hikers we met coming the other direction told us that there was a moose close to the trail in just 150 yards. We sped up our hiking speed, as we were intent on seeing that moose. You should know that we have been bam-moosled more than once! That's the term that we invented this summer when we were told about moose ahead on the trail. It rhymes with bamboozled--which means tricked or mislead. So when you are told about moose that are ahead on the trail but you never see it for yourself--you've been bam-moosled. Now we have mixed emotions about getting wildlife sighting advice on a trail. It always seemed that those animals were gone by the time we got to the described sighting spot. Again, we hurriedly hiked the 150 yards and searched and found nothing but beautiful mountains. Some would say that's not such a bad sighting.

Much further down the trail, we met another hiker that described the moose she had just stopped to watch--five more minutes down the trail. With her new descriptions, we hurried along to this clearing. Do you see it?

We wouldn't have seen it either without that last hiker's descriptions. Look again in the lower left hand corner in the picture above. We hiked closer and then zoomed in for a better picture. We could see that the moose had moved away from the trail, and was now closer to the trees.

We weren't bam-moosled this time after all! And we have to take back our bad feelings about getting wildlife sighting advice. We would have never seen this big guy without knowing to carefully scan this area. 

We found out that he had been right beside the trail thirty minutes earlier, scaring the hikers into taking a very wide detour to stay away from him. Now we were wishing he was closer to the trail, but we stayed and watched him from a distance for a while.

As we continued, we found a spur trail that led to this viewpoint of the 14,000+ feet peaks that surrounded us. A sign indicated that on a clear day we could see Pikes Peak from here. The weather today was a little cloudy and hazy, but we could still see the famous peak in the distance. The sign also told the story of the day in 1893 when Katharine Lee Bates went up Pikes Peak and penned a poem that she originally titled "Pikes Peak." Perhaps you've heard of this poem that goes: "O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!" Did you start humming as you read those lyrics? It was set to music, and became the song "America the Beautiful." See what things we learn on our hikes?

It was a 1.4-mile hike to get to our destination. We had found Lost Lake!

We hiked to this lake several years ago, and we had quickly snapped a picture at the water's edge with angry gray clouds all around us. We got soaked in the pouring rain and we waded through the mud to get back to the car that day. You can read about it in the blog titled "Cottonwood Pass on the Fourth of July" in 2020. With that experience in our past, you can be sure that our rain coats were in the backpack today. We were blessed with bluer skies this time, and we had the time to enjoy Lost Lake. We hiked around the end of the lake to get more views of the island in the middle, and the mountains that circle the lake.

We hiked until the trail became a rock scramble. You can barely see Mark among the big boulders on the left side of the picture below. That meant it was time to turn around.

As we looked to the top of the mountain, we could see hikers playing in the snow above us. They were on the Continental Divide Trail that can be accessed at the Cottonwood Pass summit. We toyed with the idea of hiking up the very steep trail to join to the Continental Divide Trail--but then we came to our senses.

We had one more look at Lost Lake, with its water that was so clear we could see every rock on the bottom.

Denisa also paused long enough to take pictures of the flowers along the edge of the lake. The green stems are turning red at the top, indicating that their season is about to come to an end.

We headed back down the trail, but Mark had noticed that there was an alternate hiking trail for the return trip. Sometimes his alternate paths can be tricky, but we decided to try it anyway. It turned out to be a very well-maintained path through the forest, with brand new interpretive signs along the way.

We discovered that the forest service was working on a brand new trail head with new parking for the Lost Lake trail. There was still a gate over the new parking area and they were working on a new sign at the entrance. But Mark had accidentally found the new trail and access to Lost Lake. Hikers will no longer have to park in questionable spots along the busy highway. Doing it our way meant we still had a half-mile walk up the steep highway to get back to our pickup. But we successfully made it into a 4.1-mile loop hike (with only 522 feet elevation gain). We love a good loop hike!

It was just another couple driving miles up the road to get to the Cottonwood Pass day use area. We were over 12,000 feet in elevation, so we both needed our jackets in August for a hike up to the viewpoint to see the mountains to our north.

From here we could also look down to Taylor Reservoir to our west. On our last trip we drove the 16 miles down the Cottonwood Highway to see it up close. But the weather didn't look good to put the kayak on the lake, so we decided this distant view of the reservoir was good enough for us.

The butterflies were enjoying the wildflowers still blooming at this high elevation. This little orange and black butterfly was so enamored by the blooms that he let Denisa take a picture.

Our next stop was the top of Cottonwood Pass. At 12,126 feet, this is where the Continental Divide intersects these mountains. According to the sign, it's also the dividing point between the San Isabel National Forest and the Gunnison National Forest.

From this parking lot we started a steep trail up to the summit viewpoint. It was a majestic view in all directions from the top.

A panorama picture from the summit shows the mountains around us, as well as glimpses of the winding Cottonwood highway that brought us here.

While at the viewpoint, we heard the familiar squeak of a pika. These cute little mammals are related to rabbits, but smaller and with tiny ears. We often hear them squeak, but we seldom see them. It's almost impossible to get a picture because they quickly duck into one of their burrows. Today, however, this little pika decided to pose for a moment long enough to snap a picture.

Enough people hike to the top so that we could trade picture-taking duties with another couple.

After that short summit trail, most hikers return downhill to the parking lot. But we can see another summit view if we head further uphill. This is part of the Colorado Trail (CT) and the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) that march across this state. 

Of course we headed upwards along the zig-zagging switchbacks to even higher views--and some snow.

It was windy at the top, and a u-shaped pile of rocks provided some relief from that wind.

CT and CDT hikers could take refuge here from the wind on the ridge. This was part of a seven-mile ridge section that doesn't get much protection from the elements. We talked to several through-hikers on the 567-mile Colorado Trail. They were trying to decide whether to continue the seven miles on the ridge today, or camp lower and hike that ridge stretch tomorrow. Our view while sitting in that little wind-break of stones proved that we had wandered into more of God's wonders.

We continued on the ridge, hoping to see Lost Lake from the top in a mile or two. But we were side-tracked by a couple wildlife sightings. We heard the cluck of an adult ptarmigan and spotted her on the side of the trail.

In the winter, ptarmigans will have pure white feathers that help them to blend into the snow that will cover this high elevation home. But in the summer they have mottled feathers that help them to blend with their habitat. That makes them hard to spot among the grass and rocks. At the time we didn't realize that we actually captured two ptarmigans in this picture.

We saw more movement around us, and realized that the mother was calling to her clutch of ptarmigan chicks. Do you see two of them in the picture below?

They were easier to spot and photograph when they ran down the trail right in front of us. These birds nest on the ground and prefer to walk rather than fly. We would spot five adolescent chicks running towards the mother's clucking call. 

A little later down the trail we spotted another family of ptarmigans. This time two of the chicks were sitting very still among the overhanging rocks near the trail. That might have something to do with the raptor that we saw circling in the blue mountain sky a few minutes before.

Ptarmigans seem to be social birds that don't scurry away from hikers. They are the only birds in Colorado that live year-round in this high-elevation alpine region, and we certainly enjoyed spending some time with them high above tree line.

Our next tiny wildlife encounter in the alpine was a couple more pikas. 

In over eight years of full-time travel, we've only successfully taken a couple pika pictures. So we felt very blessed to take a couple more today.

While we enjoyed our time on the ridge above tree line, we couldn't help but notice that the clouds were thickening and turning an ominous gray. With no protection from storms at this elevation, we had to turn back before we saw Lost Lake from the top. 

It was a zig-zagging switchback trail back down the Colorado/Continental Divide Trail to the pickup. We got some sprinkles of rain, but we didn't get wet.

That was our last stop on the Cottonwood Highway. We had a great August day with temperatures that never got out of the 60s. We were blessed to get to spend the summer months in the mountains! Our long day on Cottonwood Pass meant that we barely made it back to Buena Vista in time for the 6:00 concert in the park. 

The bluegrass group handed out spoons and kazoos to the crowd, and we all felt like we were part of  the band. A good time was had by all!

We left the motor home early this morning, and we didn't return until 8:30 in the evening. It was a long and beautiful and exhausting day along Cottonwood Pass.