Near Ridgway, CO
West Dallas, East Dallas Roads and Blue Lakes Trail Hike
Our day began with a wrong turn but only added to our adventure. We planned to hike the Blue Lakes Trail which is accessed from East Dallas Creek Road but we turned off on West Dallas Creek Road instead. What we found was another beautiful drive along ridges of flowers, canyons and lots of trees. At the beginning of the road we entered the Double RL Ranch of Ralph Lauren.
The scenery along the road did not disappoint with lots of greenery, blooming flowers, mountains and streams.
We enjoyed the drive and glad we were able to include it in our day.
So now back to our regular scheduled trip - Dallas Road to Blue Lakes Trail.
From Ridgway take Highway 62 for about 5 miles to the Dallas Creek Road (CR7) and then drive about 9 miles over dirt, somewhat rough, road to the trailhead.
The Blue Lakes Trail is 6.6 miles RT. It was uphill most of the way to the Lower Blue Lake and is rated moderately strenuous. We gained 1,320 feet in elevation by the time we reached the Lower Blue Lake. The trail had a nice balance of shady and sunny parts and the payoff was gorgeous and well worth the aches and pains we experienced.
We transversed through meadows filled with explosions of wildflowers, by waterfalls and hopped, skipped & jumped through a stream crossing.
The lake, at an elevation of 10,980 ft, is within the scenic basin of the Mt. Sheffels wilderness area of the Uncompahgre National Forest. It is surrounded around by Mt. Sheffels and Dallas Mtns.
Because of our late start and the strenuous upward climb we were running very short on time and only stayed at the lake for a short period of time to relax for the return trip down. There are two more lakes that were out of our hiking abilities for the day - we leave those for another hike. But the trip down was not without some excitement...
We were not the only ones enjoying the abundant vegetation and flowers and the word on the trail was that there was a bear in the meadow above the creek crossing foraging for edibles and I was hoping we weren't the edibles. So we slowly maneuvered through the meadow with wide eyes and amazement of a huge bear. Oh yes, it was closer than was comfortable. (Sorry we did not get a head shot of the bear as we were focusing on getting through the meadow) This was really the icing on a perfect adventure.
Before I end the post I must give some notice to the flowers which were abundant during our hike. This is only a small sampling of the magnitude of flowers.
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| Cow Parsnip |
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| Columbine |
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| Rosy Paintbrush |
Thank you for joining us on our adventure. Get out there and experience your adventure.
WOW! Bears do have a way of adding to the adventure! Lucky for you there was plenty for him to munch on.
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful hike....we will definitely add it to our list for our next visit to Montrose. Alpine lakes have the prettiest color...beautiful pictures.
We were really lucky it was a beautiful day with no storms to scare us away. That was the closest I've been to a bear in the wild and it was a little too close for my liking but wouldn't trade the experience.
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