The Gore-geous Gore Range

Surprise Lake, Upper and Lower Cataract Lakes

We've lived in Colorado for nearly a year and, I'm ashamed to say have yet to camp in our new lovely home state. The Fourth-of-July weekend was approaching fast and it seemed like everyone in the state (and several surrounding ones) was heading to the Colorado Rockies for a long weekend of camping. Popular campgrounds filled up months in advance and even the unpopular ones were getting scarse several weeks before. Given our devout hatred of camping with large groups, particularly vehicle-enabled large groups, we were looking for something remote and unknown on this popular weekend.

Thus, the Gore Range.

"The which?" asked several people. "Ah! Good!" I thought, "If people in Boulder outdoor stores have never heard of the Gore Range, then perhaps neither have the hoardes of RV-equipped suburbanites!" The truth is that the Gore Range remains largely unknown because it doesn't have any of Colorado's famous 14ers in it, it doesn't feature any National Parks, and it doesn't show up well from I-70 headed west. It also tends to be buggy, swampy, and very rigorous climbing. The summits are jagged and steep and are not for casual hikers.
I started looking into possible easy backpacking trips in this little-known area. My parents had hiked here in 1971 and bequeathed me their maps (a set of USGS quads from circa 1933 now horrendously out of date). On their recommendation (and armed with more updated maps), we headed for the Cataract Lake Trailhead with the intention of repeating my parents' adventure of 33 years before. We would hike five miles in to Upper Cataract Lake, camp for the night, and return the next morning.

Things started to go south as soon as we arrived. As Amy and I started pulling gear out of the car, she discovered that her hiking boots were still sitting on the living room floor. Our only options were driving back 2 hours to pick them up or making do with the snow clogs she was driving in. Fortunately, she picked the latter, but we were forced to modify our plans slightly.
The trail turned out to be quite benign with a relatively even footbed and a minimum of ankle-turning roots and rocks. We started out in hot sun through a gorgeous meadow filled with wild flowers: phlox, indian paintbrush, daisies, wild roses, and many others I couldn't identify. Shortly, at the edge of an aspen and evergreen forest, we encountered the first of many groups of gigantic columbines, the Colorado state flower. We have some growing on our deck in pots, but these were 3-4 inches in diameter and a most vibrant violet and white. Wow!
The trail became steeper as we ascended 2.5 miles toward Surprise Lake. Amy's earstwhile shoes turned out better than expected, but her still-recovering shoulder started protesting the pressure of pack straps after a few miles. Surprise Lake turned out to be utterly gorgeous with a great view of Mount Dora to the south and surrounded by evergreens on all sides. This seemed like a fine place to camp. Fly fishermen hauled small trout out of the lake in great numbers (and tossed them all back in as far as I could tell) and intermittent cool breezes kept the mosquitos to a minimum.

After a rest at the lake, we stashed our packs and continued lightly laden the additional 2.5 miles toward Upper Cataract Lake, our original destination. The trail leveled out after a steep initial climb and we soon emerged at on a tallus field with a fantastic view to the south of Eagles Nest Peak. Below us on the right was the small, idyllic-looking Cat Lake. We traversed below the tallus and reached Upper Cataract Lake.
Upper Cataract is definitely on my list of top-five most beautiful lakes (Lago Todos los Santos in Chile being the hands-down numero uno). The long lake ended in scree and snow under the steep north face of Eagles Nest Peak and a small cirque on the left hinted at a series of smaller lakes up towards the headwaters and snowfields high above. Evergreen trees and a series of picturesque rocks dropped down to the shoreline on the near end and sides and a babbling stream to my right flowed out of the lake and through a spectacular snow arch left over from the winter (though probably no longer stable). Hearty white flowers grew in clumps right up to the snow itself. Impressive!

It was only 4pm but the lake was already getting crowded with at least five groups of campers. We turned around and hiked back down to the less-popular Surprise Lake getting increasingly munched by bugs. Arriving, we found our packs undisturbed and the camping area entirely deserted. It was still early, but we set up the tent and cooked dinner anyway. A series of squirrels were greatly displeased by our presence and spent hours chiding us very loudly from nearby trees. By 8pm, it was still definitely light out but we retired for the night anyway. Somewhere in there, my water bladder leaked in the tent and my sleeping bag ended up soaked in the foot area. I spent an uncomfortable night and was glad when daylight finally came.
Dawn brought another great view of the lake. We packed up camp and headed out early back down the trail. The flowers were even better in this direction. Amy discovered that downhill travel in her lace-less shoes was less comfortable than uphill and we were glad to finally get to the car at about 10am.
Doffing our packs, we hiked half a mile up the road to the Lower Cataract Lake trailhead and set off to see the huge waterfall at the other side of the lower lake. This area was quite crowded with lots of picnicers, fishermen, and other less-ambitious day hikers. Never-the-less, we had the two mile circum-lake trail largely to ourselves with even better flowers than we'd seen before. The waterfall wasn't directly visible from the trail though we saw a lot of frothing water cascading over rocks and flowing into the lake and could certainly hear the 300' cascade in the forest above. Continuing around to the north side of the lake, we finally could see the waterfall in all its glory in front of the craggy summit of Eagles Nest Peak with the blue lake below. Gorgeous!

A great break from city life and the rigors of wedding planning. It was a modest hike as these things go (13 miles in two days), but definitely set us back on the right mental path. The Gores are remote and wild and completely wonderful; I look forward to returning. However, despite being one of the state's least-known destinations, we saw many people on the trail. I can't imagine what something like Rocky Mountain National Park must be like! Yikes!

The Wilderness Journal

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