Backpacking Colorado’s Eagles Nest Wilderness

Colorado’s Sawatch Range is home to 15 peaks that soar to heights over 14,000 feet in elevation, with Mount of the Holy Cross (14,005 ft) the northernmost of said peaks. Anyone who has ever skied at Vail is well aware of Holy Cross, as it stands sentinel to your right as you head up to Blue Sky Basin, the single highest peak in view peering over Vail’s legendary back bowls.

I-70 was by no means what divided the Sawatch Range, Vail, and the Summit County population centers from the Gore Range, of course. The divide was the natural weak point on which engineers chose to build the world’s most miserable interstate to traverse during snow season. But as traffic on I-70 began to reach new levels of gridlock over the last two decades thanks to adventure-seekers heading west out of Denver, it’s hard not to notice that the interstate itself has become something of its own line of demarcation.

In the winter months, each of Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone, Arapahoe Basin, and Copper Mountain are accessible primarily via I-70, and all of which – like the Sawatch Range – lie to the south side of the interstate. In the summer months, the peakbaggers flock to the same south side of the interstate with 14er summits in their eyes, with Quandary, the Decalibron, and Mount Elbert (14,443 ft, highest in Colorado) all nestled south outside Breckenridge and Leadville.

The Gore Range, though, sits just north of the interstate, and actually serves as the first natural billboard for said adventure seekers as they emerge westbound through the Eisenhower Tunnel. It’s Buffalo Mountain (12,777 ft, pictured below) that you see when you finally clear the tunnel and get that sensation that you’ve finally ditched the city and arrived in the mountains for your adventure. That’s not part of where most everyone goes, however, as Buffalo Mountain is actually part of the Gore Range, not the Sawatch.

It, and the entire Gore Range, sit on the north side of I-70, and a good portion of its ~60 mile ridge lies within Colorado’s Eagles Nest Wilderness.

Mount Powell (13,560 ft) and Eagles Nest (13,419 ft) mark the two highest points of both the Gore Range and the Eagles Nest Wilderness, and each is located towards the northern tip of the 135,114 acre designated Wilderness area northeast of the town of Silverthorne (and south of Green Mountain Reservoir and the town of Heeney). The Gore Range itself eschews its reputation as a ‘non 14er’ range by being one of the sharpest, craggiest ranges in the entire Rocky Mountains, almost as if the mountains themselves were throwing up middle fingers to the more crowded and taller Sawatch Range to its south.

The peaks of the range serve as a northwest-to-southeast backbone of the Wilderness, with the ~45 mile Gore Range Trail running alongside its eastern edge. While there are no trails that cut over the ridge perpendicularly east-west, there are numerous trailheads on both the east and west sides of the Wilderness that provide access points to the Wilderness’ countless alpine lakes. On the eastern edge, in particular, there are access trails that serve almost as feeders to the Gore Range Trail, with spinoff trails up particular drainages off the Gore Range Trail to the myriad lakes that sit in their basins.

Boulder Lake, for instance, sits roughly ~4 miles up the Boulder Creek Trail out of the aptly named Boulder Creek Trailhead (or a similar distance from Rock Creek Trailhead to the south), and provides both four-star camping and views up-drainage of Keller Mountain (13,085 ft) and a handful of other unnamed peaks that soar past 13,000 ft. While it’s a destination in its own right, there is an unmaintained trail that continues up the drainage to Upper Boulder Lake (at roughly 11,000 ft), too.

Boulder Lake is beautiful, but it also serves as a perfect example of what backpacking the Eagles Nest Wilderness has to offer – its lakes. Whether it’s Boulder, or Salmon Lake, Willow Lakes, Slate Lake, Surprise Lake, Upper Cataract Lake, Mirror Lake, Tipperary Lake, or Eaglesmere Lake, the trails along the eastern side of the Wilderness give entry to end points that are some of the most gorgeous lakes within central Colorado. And if you’re a) the even more adventurous type and b) the snowpack allows, you can venture further to the likes of Dora Lake, Bubble Lake, Cliff Lake, or Duck Lake off-trail to snuggle right up to the likes of Mount Powell and the heart of the Wilderness’ crags.

The presence of the Gore Range Trail gives the northernmost access points of the Wilderness a unique bonus, though, in that it allows you to put together a loop for multi-day trekking.

Setting out from the Eaglesmere Trailhead south of Green Mountain Reservoir gives you the chance for a roughly ~10 mile loop along the Eaglesmere Trail, Gore Range Trail, and Suprise Lake Trail, with each of Eaglesmere, Griffith, Tipperary, and Suprise Lakes accessible with slightly additional mileage add-ons on the route. If you want an even bigger loop, you can set out from the Elliott Ridge Trailhead further west and put together a roughly ~23 mile loop down the Elliott Ridge Trail, east on the Upper Cataract Trail (past each of Cat Lake, Upper Cataract Lake, and Mirror Lake), cut back west on the Gore Range Trail (past Tipperary Lake and Eaglesmere Lake), and back out via some road walking as you skirt Mahan Lake, too.

I’ve spent the entirety of this post focusing on the accessibility of the Eagles Nest Wilderness from its eastern side, having already spelled out that the Gore Range slices the Wilderness down the middle effectively into two parts. That’s not to ignore the western section, of course, but that part does come with some caveats.

Each of the Booth, Pitkin Creek, Bighorn Creek, and Gore Creek Trailheads provide access along the southwest side of the Wildnerness, though you’re effectively parking within a stone’s throw of I-70 to do so. The hiking to the endpoints of each of those trails lands you at Booth Lake, Pitkin Lake, Deluge Lake, and Gore Lake, respectively, and the hikes and camping once there are tremendous, it’s just that their location along I-70 and proximity of the trailheads to the town of Vail mean these southern/western sections often end up much more crowded than their eastern peers.

Access to the northern portion of the Wilderness runs into a similar, if slightly different dilemma – private land. The view of Mount Powell and Piney Lake in the picture above was taken after setting out from the Piney Lake Trailhead, though it involved hiking through the privately owned Piney River Ranch to begin. The East Meadow Creek Trailhead is in a similar situation, too, though the ~16 mile out and back trek up the East Meadow Creek Trail between Pretty Mountain (11,268 ft) and Slate Mountain (11,129 ft) gives you road-less-traveled access to excellent camping alongside the Soda Lakes and the North Fork of the Piney River.

All told, the Eagles Nest Wilderness provides views of some of the more vicious-looking mountains in the state while being super accessible from the cities of Colorado’s Front Range. And while it’s devoid of its own ‘signature’ loop, the ability to leverage the Gore Range Trail’s north-south foothold means you can still see days worth of pristine Wilderness within its confines.

If You Go…

• While dispersed camping is allowed throughout the Eagles Nest Wildnerness, a special order dictates that there be no campfires within 1/4 mile of all lakes (or above treeline). Camping is also encouraged to be more than 100 feet from all trails or streams, though deference to using establishes sites in lieu of destroying more habitat to create new ones is preferable.
• The Eagles Nest Wilderness lies within the White River National Forest, and I’d encourage you to check with their rangers before planning any trip. They’ll help with snowpack updates, water level forecasts, and with updates on which of the more than 180 miles of trails have been most recently maintained and cleared.
• Permits are required for camping within the Eagles Nest Wilderness, though they’re self-issue permits that you fill out and drop in drop-boxes at trailheads.
• The map I use when backpacking through Eagles Nest Wilderness is National Geographic’s Trails Illustrated #149 (Eagles Nest and Holy Cross Wilderness Areas).
• Colorado Highway 9 is the road that borders the eastern edge of the Wilderness, as it runs north-south along the Blue River. If you’re the kind of person who’s into cool views while driving, the view of the Gore Range (and Eagles Nest Wilderness) looking south while driving Hwy 9 through Middle Park from Steamboat Springs back to Summit County is one of my favorites in the state. So often you ‘can’t see the ranges for the mountains’ in Colorado because they’re nestled so tightly together, but the spaciousness of Middle Park provides the ability to view the Gore Range from across dozens of miles of flat meadow.
• As always, use Leave No Trace principles while in the Eagles Nest Wilderness.