Jason first read about this hike in the guidebook "Hiking the USA" by Lonely Planet. Later, he read about it on the web and purchased the guidebook "Aspen Snowmass Trails", where this loop is called the Four Pass Loop. It's a 26 mile loop trail that circumnavigates the Maroon Bells, and is usually done as a four-day backpack. It traverses over four high passes, crosses many streams, travels through several stunning basins full of wildflowers, and yields awesome views of the highest peaks in the Elk Range. We had to try it. We set aside this first half of Fourth of July week for this trip.
About a week before the trip, we began calling the Aspen ranger station for information on trail conditions. It didn't sound good. We also called guiding services and outdoor shops, and most reports sounded like the high passes were snow covered and the streams were running high. Hikers reported "wallowing" in waist deep snow and scrambling on difficult terrain to avoid it. We conferred with the team and decided we'd still give the loop a try, but bring ice axes and get an early start each day, to top out on the passes before the snow got too soft. A quick analysis with my friend Mark's TOPO software showed none of the passes exceeded 32 degrees in steepness... easy snow with an ice axe.
Armed with our huge backpacks and egos, we drove out to Aspen the night of the 29th. We knew all the campgrounds on the way to Maroon Lake would be full, but hoped to find someplace to camp in between Independence Pass and Aspen. The campground closest to Aspen (Difficult Campground) was full, but the next one up (Wheeler Campground) wasn't. We found a pleasant camping spot about 10:30pm and settled in for a restless night... across from us, a rambunctious weekend barbeque continued until it started raining about 2am.
When we got up about 6am, the clouds were lifting and it looked gorgeous. We packed up the gear, grabbed coffee in town, and drove to Maroon Lake. We passed the T-Lazy-7 ranch with all its exotic animals and then arrived at the entrance gate. We were surprised when they waved us through without making us pay an entrance fee! The overnight parking lot is quite close to the day parking lot, and fortunately had two spots left (okay, only one, but we improvised). The overnight lot is home to the Maroon Lake campground hosts... they came out of their RV's to chat with us about our plans. Nice folk!
We took plenty of time to gather our gear, and it was time to hit the trail! First stop was to get prizewinning photos of Colorado's most-photogenic mountains, the Maroon Bells over Maroon Lake. It was a gentle two miles to Crater Lake, with the last half mile or so pretty rocky and rugged. We went downhill a bit here, into the "Crater". The trail registry is at Crater Lake and we signed in. There is also a sign indicating "No Camping" and "No Dogs" at crater Lake. No dogs? Apparently no one here could read. We went to introduce our dogs to the other groups of dogs already romping in the water. We took an hour long break here, snacking and taking more pictures.
We continued past Crater Lake up the basin, following West Maroon Creek. The trees are spotty - lush and dense in spots, barren in others. The basin has wonderful waterfalls coursing around on both sides. We marveled at how steep the rock walls were around us. After a while we came to our first stream crossing. There was a snow bridge over this section of West Maroon Creek, but to me it looked thin and unstable. Cora crossed on the bridge, and the rest of us (at first) took off our boots, donned Tevas, and crossed with Tevas and hiking poles. I went first, then Jason, then Michelle... and Michelle slipped and fell! She wasn't hurt, but her boots filled with water and she was a little scared. She retreated to the first side and chose to cross on the snow bridge - which held, fortunately. Trent followed her. Here, we decided to eat lunch and let Michelle's boots dry out a bit. Oakley, in a moment of brilliance, ran to the other side of the stream and did her business right next to the water. Cursing, I crossed the stream again with the trowel, scooped Oakley's business as far from the stream as I could, scrubbed the trowel in snow, and then re-crossed. Sigh - all part of the joy of dog ownership.
We followed the trail with West Maroon Creek now on our right, and after a while more we came to our second stream crossing. The guidebook warned us not to follow the false trail along the creek... to us it was pretty obvious where to cross - right here at the widest spot with the most consistent flow. Michelle was nervous, so we crossed "shoulder-to-shoulder" this time. Cora led with hiking poles, and everyone behind grabbed the shoulders of the person in front. Only one person could move his/her feet at a time. This worked OK but was a bit awkward with the big packs. Jason crossed last with the dogs, after throwing the dog packs and Trent's sleeping bag (I made the most miraculous catch of my entire life) across the creek. We don't recommend throwing anything across the creek - we almost missed!! Our proudest moment was when Sadie crossed the creek. The lab-mix is a very sweet but clumsy dog, and Trent and Michelle were sure she'd end up slipping and giving everyone a good chase downstream. But shen Sadie crossed, she swam proud and sure to Trent and Michelle on the other side - she was as graceful as I've ever seen. Good dog!
Finally after this effort, we could see we were almost at treeline and it was time to find a place to camp. The basin is gorgeous, ringed with streams, red rock walls, snowfields, wildflowers, and krummholz. We were finally starting to get a view of West Maroon Pass ahead of us - it looked a little snowy, but not too bad. We picked a cluster of trees with some packed-down areas underneath. As we were setting up camp, two girls hiked by coming down from West Maroon Pass. They were covered in mud! We asked them about the trail conditions, and they grimaced while telling us that the trail was melting out and was very muddy and slippery! Point taken. We met one more solo hiker coming down from the pass, and from all reports it sounded like the snow problems had at last ended - Frigid Air had a small cornice on top that was easily avoided by scrambling up a notch. We may not need the ice axes after all... perhaps only a day or two after hikers were wallowing in snow. Amazing how fast it melts.
At just 3pm, we had plenty of evening left to snack, talk, relax, cook a leisurely dinner, bear-bag everything, and snuggle into the tents (and in Cora's case, a bivy bag). It was windy but rain-less that night.
We woke at 4:15am but weren't on the trail until 6:45 - so slow! If only Jason and I weren't so dependent on a hot drink and hot breakfast to wake us up! We started the day with the steep slog up to West Maroon Pass. The trail meandered through meadows, over snowfields, and alongside rocky outcrops. It ascended at a steep grade alongside the loose, rugged red cliffs. In one spot we had to traverse a small snow slope, but it wasn't anything we couldn't handle with trekking poles and a little caution. The trail was muddy everywhere from snowmelt. Close to the top of the pass, we detoured to the top via a quick rock-and-mud scramble. And we were there! A hiker named Shawn, a lawyer from Aspen, joined us at the "summit" and we snacked together. We conquered pass number One! Jason had us take a celebratory picture with everyone holding up one finger. Trent had a rough climb to the top, and had to really resist holding up the finger he really wanted to show - ha! The basin on the other side was green and rolling, and clearly popular from the number of hikers in it. We said farewell to Shawn and headed down into the basin (after taking a quick bearing to figure out where our next pass was!).
The descent into the high basin between West Maroon Pass and Frigid Air Pass was quick - before we knew it, we were surrounded by meadows full of wildflowers! We had never seen so many. All of us turned into instant shutterbugs and took out the cameras for some great shots. In all the excitement we thought Frigid Air Pass was probably the gentle grassy pass with the thin snow band ahead of us. (We couldn't see it from West Maroon Pass very well; the compass bearing had only given us a general idea). A hiker coming toward us straightened us out - it was not a low point on a ridge like we expected, but a high ridge with a forbidding cornice on it! Wow. The pass we had been looking at led into Halsley Basin.
We came to a fork in the trail marked by a cairn. The trail heading uphill to the right was faint and almost didn't look right, but the GPS and map indicated this was it. We meandered gently uphill through flowery meadows until we came to a small tarn and stream. Here was another cairn and sign, and the steep trail uphill to Frigid Air Pass! Another hiker had left her pack here at the cairn, and headed up pack-less. We followed and watched her switchback up to the snow and scramble up over that notch in the cornice. Now it was our turn. This trail up to the pass was very steep, a real calf workout - and loose and muddy in places. We scrambled up to the notch, took three steps on snow, and were on top of Frigid Air Pass! Jason took his token photograph with everyone holding up two fingers. This one was my favorite pass - rocky and interesting and surprising. The view of the back side of the bells down into Fravert Basin was phenomenal. A large amount of Fravert Basin is above treeline - the red rocks rising out of the meadows are stunning. From here we could see the massif that makes up Hagerman Peak and Snowmass Mountain. It's an interesting contrast from the red rock everywhere else to the grey granite of these peaks. On top of Frigid Air Pass, a couple of trail runners popped their heads up from the snow behind us. They were running the whole 26 miles today, to train for the Leadville 100. How's that for buff!!! They were awesome. We even took pictures of them. We snacked again and were still able to get off our second pass by noon. Now the rest of our day would be mostly downhill to camp. But the scenery was still going to get more beautiful.
We wound down into Fravert Basin, crossing just a little snow on the way down. Cora tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to glissade into the basin. It wasn't steep enough! We hiked through pretty streams and meadows into dense tree cover. As we adjusted layers in the trees, three elk ran by - one with a huge rack. We hiked from here to a small stream with stepping-stones to cross. Here I noticed Oakley was limping. She had something sticking out of her foot - a porcupine quill! I don't know how she got just one quill stuck in her foot, but not much surprises me with Oakley anymore. We walked out of the gentle section of Fravert Basin and could see little waterfalls and cascades in the creek that is the North Fork of the Crystal River. We kept stopping to take pictures of the waterfalls. The trail suddenly got very steep (and, full of mosquitoes! We needed our repellent badly here). We switchbacked downhill in a steep gorge. When the trail leveled out into a meadow, we looked behind us at an awesome waterfall we had just hiked next to. we felt sheepish for taking pictures of the little waterfalls at the top.
The weather was closing in and we were hoping to get to our next trail fork (the one that heads up to Trail Rider Pass) before camping. We hiked in trees until coming to a camp that was clearly used by horse-packers. A hitching post, small toilet in the trees, and lots of horse manure marked the camp. A downed log was over the trail in front of us, and we had to look quick to see our trail which was now a faint game trail off to the right. Just then, Oakley saw the fattest marmot I've ever seen and started chasing him. The marmot was so slow I was seriously afraid Oakley would catch him (what would she do if she caught a marmot almost as big as her??). But he darted up a tree! Did you know marmots can climb trees??? I didn't. I had never seen a dog tree a marmot, but now Oakley was rooted to the spot, pointing at her marmot stuck in the branches. We dragged her away and up the game trail to the stream.
Here we obviously had to take off our boots and ford the Crystal River North Fork. None of these stream crossings were very deep - calf-to-knee. We changed into Tevas as it started to rain. As we were getting ready to cross, a bolt of lightning struck the ridge above us and was followed by a BOOM of thunder. It rained harder. None of us wanted to be in the middle of a river with THAT weather around us! We kept our Tevas on and darted for the trees. We spread out in tree clusters, sitting in the horse manure and trying to keep Oakley away from the (still treed) marmot. Cora and the rest of us got some laughs (and good pictures) at the poor marmot's expense, but we did wonder if marmots should really be in trees and whether the poor guy could get down.
We had to decide whether we'd wait out the storm and cross the stream to camp, or just camp here. None of us really wanted to camp in horse poop, and I didn't want to be holding Oakley back from the marmot all night either. So Cora played harmonica while we waited for the skies to clear a little. Soon the clouds lightened up just a bit, and we decided to go for it. Back to the meadow with us, and to the stream. Cora, Trent, and Michelle crossed shoulder-to-shoulder while Jason and I used our hiking poles and carried the dog packs across. Neither dog had any real problems with the water. Out of the stream, it was a quick half-mile walk to a very nice camping spot in the trees. We passed two hikers that suggested we camp there, as the trail got steep very quickly from there! And, they said the next two passes were both totally clear of snow. That's good news and bad news. Definitely good to not have to worry about it, but a bummer that we carried ice axes this whole way and may not get to use them. We arrived at camp about 4:30 or 5pm. Later than we wanted, but we did have to wait out a storm. We made dinner, bear-bagged, and crawled into the tents and bivies. This was our hardest day!
Finally at the top of the drainage, the trail became a little more gentle. It sidled next to a picturesque alpine lake, and a mule deer bounded away from us and up the snow. On the final approach to Trail Rider Pass, the trail has merciless steep switchbacks (not quite as steep as Frigid Air Pass, but perhaps looser and more narrow - careful not to knock loose rocks onto other hikers!). Sometimes the trail was narrow enough that you had to place one foot directly in front of the other. Finally we topped out and celebrated with Jason's customary picture of us, holding up three fingers for our third pass out of four! We had wonderful views into the Crystal River basin behind us, and Snowmass Lake in front of us. We could also see Buckskin Pass which we would cross tomorrow.
It was all downhill from here, and good thing, because the weather was already starting to change for the worse - and only about 10:30am! Cora, Jason, and I actually did find an okay place to glissade. Trent and Michelle easily avoided the snow, finding more solid ground to hike on. All of us, however, needed our gaiters because it was impossible to avoid snow and mud completely. We followed the trail down the meadow and into willows high above the lake. The willows were muddy in spots, snowy in others, and rocky where there was neither. To make up for the weird trail conditions, we had really great views of Snowmass Lake and Snowmass Mountain. When we were almost to the northeast side of the lake, a side trail took off to the left into the trees. This trail wasn't marked, but Jason followed it and determined this was the trail to take us to campsites at Snowmass Lake. We took the short walk downhill, crossed a logjam on the creek, and found a good place to make camp! It was only noon - we had the rest of the afternoon to loaf by this beautiful lake.
And we loafed in style. We took pictures, read books, soaked tired feet in the lake. At about 2:30pm we were all exhausted, and it was also very clear that the weather was closing in around us - we were going to get a storm. We quickly put raincovers on our packs and snuggled into our shelters for a catnap. I didn't sleep well, and instead watched the storm outside. It rained and gave us a couple of good thunderclaps, but was not severe. I knew Oakley must be exhausted when we watched a chipmunk and then a robin hop around just outside the tent... and Oakley didn't even make a move!
After the storm passed, everyone else was still asleep so I decided to take a little walk to the lake. I met a father and son who would be climbing Snowmass Mountain the next day - Tim and Nathan. I offered some route beta for the climb, and Tim said he'd already read some trip reports on the web. He mentioned a climber who pulled a loose rock on himself, and I said "yeah, I think I wrote that trip report!" We both got a kick out of knowing that I was the Dawn from the web trip reports, and he had been reading my reports this whole time. I wished the two of them good luck on their climb!
After the storm and the naps, we could finally make dinner, bear-bag, and crawl in the tents for good. It was a much-needed, very relaxing afternoon and evening.
Today was Trent and Michelle's second wedding anniversary - congratulations to them, and we were excited to get to celebrate it with them. Today we woke at 4:30 and were on the trail by 6:30. Hey, a 15 minute improvement from yesterday - we're getting better. We started our hike around an interesting ridge of red, layered rock that jutted into the basin. When we came out of the trees, we descended into a cold, wet meadow / marsh that was still in shadow - the high peaks around gave it lots of shelter from the sun. The dogs were soaking wet just from sniffing around the willows in this basin! I did not have my long-sleeved shirt on, only a T-shirt, thinking I'd warm up from the hike - but going downhill into this cool marsh didn't warm me up much! Neither did the next stage - crossing Snowmass Creek while still in the shade. The trail approaches the stream at a very appropriate spot, a shallow and slow-moving section of stream. There are some stepping stones, but the water falls off the stepping stones into a rather deep section! Cora and Jason forded the stream across the stones with boots on - but halfway across, Jason looked back at the three of us with water starting to stream at boot-cuff level. He said "I think this is a boots-off crossing!" Point taken. The rest of us put on Tevas while Jason and Cora shakily finished their crossing. Crossing with Tevas was really easy, firm footing and almost no current at all. Our easiest stream crossing yet - and last one. Holy smokes was it cold there, in my T-shirt, in the shade, in that wet meadow with my feet in snowmelt water.
The trail continued along the creek for a ways and then forked. One fork bore right and stayed closer to the stream, the second bore left and headed uphill. From the guidebook it wasn't clear which fork to take, but intuition said we ought to head uphill - and we did. The other trail seemed to head up Snowmass Creek into the basin ahead of us, which was just gorgeous. We had passed one hiker on this loop who said this Snowmass Creek basin is his favorite spot in the world. Red cliffs and abundant wildlife, he said. It is a very nice place.
Our trail fork turned out to be correct, and we started taking switchbacks uphill. Where the slopes started becoming more gentle and we approached treeline, we passed a large family camping out by a stream. Sadie went into their camp and stole food! We apologized profusely and moved uphill to take a snack break. From here we could see the gentle grassy slopes heading up to Buckskin Pass. waterfalls cascaded around us. This area is wonderful.
The trail then continues at a gentle grade and really doesn't get any steeper! It ascends toward the pass, takes a couple of small switchbacks, then one VERY long switchback north, then south in a long ascent to the pass. Walking through this high meadow with peaks all around you makes for a Sound-Of-Music, Hills-Are-Alive finish to the climb. Woohoo! Buckskin Pass was one of the best yet. We could see Snowmass Mountain, Capitol Peak, North Maroon (South Maroon was behind it), and Pyramid Peak very clearly. Jason took one final pass picture, with all of us raising four fingers for the fourth pass. We did it! Literally, all downhill from here to the cars and then greasy food for everyone! Before we left, Trent produced binoculars and we scanned Snowmass Mountain for Tim and Nathan, our internet friends from the lake. And what do you know - we saw two figures glissading down the snow, even from this far away. It looked like Nathan was going first. Go Nathan! We cheered him on. It was about 10:30, maybe closer to 11am. They made good time on their peak ascent, and were able to summit in clear weather. Good for them!
On the descent from Buckskin Pass, it became clear we were back in a tourist area. We passed hikers with all levels of preparation and experience. Some had technical daypacks, hiking poles, polypro clothing, and compasses around their necks. Others were carrying only a camera and only wearing T-shirts, shorts, and sneakers. Some even had no water and it was steaming HOT outside. Blech. We switchbacked down through little streams and wildflowers into the trees. Here the basin narrowed to a small gully, Minnehaha Gulch. The trail was pretty steep here, but the narrowness of this gulch was actually a neat change from the wide-open country we'd seen the past several days. We barely stopped. Trent, Jason, and Cora were flying downhill, while Michelle and I took our time. I'm always a bit slow on the downhill - my boots hurt my feet if I go too fast downhill. We came to the trail register and Crater Lake before we knew it. The page we'd signed from the register was already gone! Bummer. From Crater Lake, we had a short rocky uphill section that I'd been dreading all day. It was so hot and dusty here. We were back in the trees with a welcome view of Maroon Lake after that, and then finally back at the trailhead. we did it! We exchanged high fives, took "after" pictures for our "before-and-after" views of the trip, and made a beeline for the car to get fresh clothes and discuss ideas for junk food!
One of the only real disappointments of the trip was that Aspen is very hard to get around on the holidays, and it's even harder to find affordable food where one might be welcome smelling like we did. The only BBQ pit we could find was closed at this hour, 3:30pm. Reluctantly we decided to leave Aspen behind and head for El Jebel where we'd seen a Wendy's. It was almost the best Wendy's I've ever had - right behind the burgers we had in Glenwood Springs after climbing Snowmass Mountain!
We got home about 9:30pm, after a couple of stops to stretch our legs and get caffeinated. It was the best backpacking trip any of us could remember; we were so glad we got to hike it. We survived 4 days, 4 high passes, 2 good thunderstorms, 4 boots-off creek crossings, 9 to 15 blisters (Cora only counted on one foot), 1 bloody nose (Trent's), an average of about 52 pounds of gear each (not counting dogs, who carried about 6 pounds each), 12 rolls of film (estimate), and 1 marmot stuck in a tree.