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| Approaching Brown's Pass with 13er Magdalen Mt in background |
With options wide open for us and a summer 2025 Colorado trip we explored wide and far what we might do. Did we want dayhikes and summits? Did we want backpacking? As much as I love a good summit, I equally loved it when my boys said backpacking would be fun. I explored options in the San Juans, in the Gores, in the Sangres and our beloved Sawatch. While some tempting options came forward in every range we finally settled on the "easier" answer of sticking to our familiar Sawatch. No reservations or permits needed. No extra hours of driving. Close and familiar.
My father had spoken for years of having a hike up to Lake Ann. Pretty much everytime we went in to summit Huron Peak we looked with interest at the trail breaking off to Lake Ann. I decided now was the time and looked for ways to pair Lake Ann with something like a full backpacking loop. Couple this with meeting the needs of our family on this trip. My father was joyful to join us for some backpacking but he is also in his 70s and his ability for distance is not quite what it used to be. On the other hand my boys and I are happy to cover some miles on the trail (that being true, mostly regarding me). We settled on a plan where the four of us hike together to Lake Ann to camp. the next day my father hike's out to the Jeep and drives it around to the Denny Creek TH. He hikes up to Hartenstein Lake to await us. His mileage is relatively short and he gets to enjoy both lakes with us. The younger crew hikes the 15+ miles of trail in between. It was a great plan, now just to bring it to fruition.
Trip Summary:
June 30 Clear Creek Trailhead to a camp just below Lake Ann following the Colorado Trail/Continental Divide Trail. July 1 Camp to Lake Ann to the Lake Ann Pass. Following the Timberline Trail to the Texas Creek Trail and then to the Brown's Pass Trail. Camped at the Brown's Pass Trail Jct with the Hartenstein Lake Trail July 2
Hartenstein Lake Trail out and back, then the Denny Creek trail out to the Trailhead.
Stat Totals: 30.04 miles 5923 ft. ascent 6261 ft. descent
Stat Totals: 30.04 miles 5923 ft. ascent 6261 ft. descent
June 30, Hike in to Lake Ann
Clear Creek Trailhead Elevation: 10,598 ft.
Lake Ann Camp Elevation: 11,634 ft.
Distance: 4.04 mi.
Total Ascent: 1330ft.
Start Time: 5:38pm
End Time: 7:39pm
Start Time: 5:38pm
End Time: 7:39pm
The 4WD road up to the Clear Creek/Huron Trailhead was in pretty good condition with no major obstacles, just rough and bumpy. It was beautiful weather to start with mostly sunny skies and a comfy hiking temp around 70 degrees.
The first couple miles are a quite pleasant, gradually gaining trail. The views are increasingly wonderful as the Three Apostles come into view. Eventually a marked junction is found with the Apostles trail heading left and Lake Ann to the right. The trail continues a fairly easy climb for a little longer after the junction and then the climbing begins in earnest. It gains about 800 feet in the last mile and with the heavier packs on this was a workout.
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| Apostles Trail Jct |
We were watching the clock and the skies as we continued. The beautiful skies we started with now had storm clouds brewing. It seemed over Huron Peak and to the East it might even be raining. We decided to have Seth and I move ahead to find a campsite while Luke remained with my father.
Seth and I made our way up to the junction in the alpine near Lake Ann. We made it up there at 7:35pm. To the left is an easy trail to the lake, to the right heads up to the pass. We began to look for camp sites. To no avail. Nothing flat. If you don't mind camping out in the open on the alpine meadows you can find a spot, but nothing remotely close to the trail with any tree cover. We started heading back down the trail hoping to find anything in the trees. But it is such a consistent slope no obvious spot was to be found. Luke and my father caught up to us before we had settled on anything. We finally found a small enough site on a slight slope that would do. Far from the best campsite we've done in the backcountry but it sufficed.
We got the tent setup and began to work on supper. It was a fairly tight space and Lake Ann was our nearest water, also less than ideal. The storms in the area rumbled a bit but thankfully they never found us. We ate MRE's for supper. Seth and I had the pepperoni pizza, Luke had the chicken pesto pasta. We were surprised the evening was not as cold as usual up at such elevation. We were camping at 11,800, just under treeline. We think the overnight maybe barely dipped below 50.
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| Huron Peak with storm clouds |
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| Panorama of the Three Apostles |
July 1, Lake Ann to Brown's Pass Camp
Lake Ann Camp Elevation: 11,634 ft.
Lake Ann Elevation: 11,802ft.
Lake Ann Pass Elevation: 12,568ft.
Texas Creek TH Elevation: 9,973ft.
Brown's Pass Elevation: 11,981ft.
Final Camp Elevation: 11,209 ft.
Distance: 21.03 mi.
Distance: 21.03 mi.
Total Ascent: 4101ft.
Total Descent: 4527ft.
Start Time: 8:20am
End Time: 7:10pm
Total Descent: 4527ft.
Start Time: 8:20am
End Time: 7:10pm
Our night in the tiny sloped campsite went fairly well. The temp never got too cold and it didn't rain or storm on us. It was our first night at elevation though which made sleep elusive. Most of us had headaches too. I tossed and turned the whole night.
I was the first to get up. It was at first light not long after 5am. I decided to make the most of my time and walked up to Lake Ann to filter water and explore a bit. I got back to camp and no one was stirring just yet.
When my father finally awoke he found an unpleasant surprise at his backpack. Some kind of small critter, chipmunk perhaps, had badly chewed up his shoulder straps leaving one inoperable. We had to pull out some duct tape to get it put together well enough to be usable again for the hike out. It was handy to have a bit of that tape in the gear in the pack!
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| Approaching Lake Ann (left) with the Pass up to the right |
When everyone was finally moving we got some breakfast snacks and packed up camp. It was just before 9am and we hiked up together to Lake Ann to see the beautiful lake. The approach to the lake is quite pleasant and a short and very gradual downhill. Very easy access!
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| Lake Ann |
From the lake my father departed to hike back down to the trailhead while the rest of us began to hike up to the pass. The whole way we were eyeing a rather large snow patch that appeared to be blocking the top of the pass. We were wondering how much of an issue it would be. We encountered a thru-hiker on our travel that had just come down. We asked him for beta. He talked about staying above the snow heading to the northwest around it (this would be climber's right). He descended in that manner and we began to eye what his route must have looked like. We could see a passable grassy slope and a ramp that could work. As we moved further into the basin we encountered another hiker descending. He had come from climber's left (the SE side of the pass). He said there was a passage through the rocks where the snow ends. We could see what he was talking about. Based on what we could see of the trail ahead this appeared to be the shorter and more direct passage. After much thought we opted for the latter option, the shorter direct shot through the rocks.
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| Hiking up to the pass |
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| The larger (lower) snowfield was easy to pass, we worried about the corniced snow above
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| Looking down the loose rock we ascended |
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| Now above the snow on the pass |
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| Looking back at the difficult passage around the snow |
That route appeared to also be the closest to where the normal trail heads into the pass, though some of it did remain covered in snow. The snow patch was corniced and overhanging so this made a direct approach through the snow a bad idea. The rock passage was steep and the rock an incredibly loose combination of scree and volleyball sized rocks. It wasn't fun, especially for Seth who had really never done anything like it. Above the loose junk we found some light class 3 scrambling through solid rock to get above the snow and onto easier terrain in the pass. None of it was easy especially while carrying our larger backpacks. It was 10am when we finally made the pass. We were pleased to get cell signal from the now wide open Taylor Park area.
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| Selfie at the pass |
Coming down from the pass was absolutely gorgeous. The slope had numerous yellow wildflowers and the wide open switchbacks looking out into the great wide open of Taylor Park. This was possibly the highlight of the day with views. About halfway down the slope we encountered a trail junction. At the time it seemed like nothing but we would later learn just what we had missed out upon.
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| Panorama from near the pass |
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| La Plata Peak from the Pass |
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| Looking West towards the Elk Range |
The next two photos are at the junction as we encountered it on July 1, 2025. The sign in the first photo points for "Prospector Gulch" in the SE direction. You'll also see the CT-CDT logos with the arrow pointing uphill to the pass. The second photo points downhill to Taylor Park. Here's what got us. I was using a GPX track from HikingProject for the CDT and it pointed us downhill in the Taylor Park direction. This was the path for the CT and CDT. Even the CalTopo maps as of today show the same. The AccuTerra map on my phone showed the same. The maps I had on hand showed the Prospector Gulch trail as a dead-end. Based on all of that we followed the trail down the Taylor Park direction.
What we didn't know was that in the last 3 years the CT and CDT were re-routed through Prospector Gulch. Here is news article on it: click here. It sounded like this was to keep the trail higher and avoid some of the ATV, side-by-side traffic that was near trail down in Texas Creek. We knew nothing about any of this. After we returned home and as I worked on finding out what happened I did see that the Colorado Trail Explorer (COTREX) site shows the new routing of the trail. Nowhere could I find an actual GPX track of it and even for my map on this report I rough plotted my own using Google Earth. One more bit of salt in the wound is I noticed in my own photograph the darker arrow that appears to point out that the CT and CDT do head in the Prospector Gulch direction. This signpost may indeed be up to date. Had we noticed it on the day of, would we have actually followed it? I don't know. It felt a gamble given all the maps on hand sent us the other way.
In hindsight, the path we took likely added 2 miles and we spent many tree miles as opposed to some more time at or above treeline with alpine views. A silver lining is that when the storms hit during our day we did feel more protected down in the trees. C'est la vie.
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| Prospector Gulch - Taylor Park - CT - CDT Junction |
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| Prospector Gulch - Taylor Park - CT - CDT Junction |
As we descended the switchbacks we knew eventually it would flatten and we would hit the more lateral traversing portion of the trail. This too was a confusing junction. We were surprised to see no mention of the CT or the CDT, now we know why. What we ultimately ended up hiking was the Timberline Trail.
The next couple of hours and miles of our hike were mostly spent covering tree miles. Around noon we had a water filter stop at Illinois Creek. In early afternoon we had a storm roll through mostly drizzling on us but not getting us drenched. We never had to fully stop for the rain but we did put jackets and pack covers on. As the miles dragged on and our progress on the map seemed to be small it was dawning on me, this day was going to be longer than I thought. I had the original idea that this was going to be a 15-mile day. I believe this projection was taken either from the HikingProject stats or from the stats Google Earth gave me for the track. Either was it wildly undersold the total. As we did our math alongside our progress the estimate would go from 15 to 18 and eventually to 20+. It was the longest day on foot for either of my two boys to date.
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| Some rare moments outside the trees on our path |
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| Descending through the Aspens towards Texas Creek |
When we bottomed out at Texas Creek we were glad for some relative flats. My poor son Seth's knee was beginning to bother him from the distance and the downhills. This was originally a running issue and we had hoped the hiking during this week wouldn't aggravate. Today would prove us wrong.
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| At the Texas Creek trailhead |
At the Texas Creek trailhead we saw the map and this was the first moment it dawned upon us that we had not been on the CT/CDT. I was shocked and not pleased but had to quickly digest it as there was nothing that could be done.
Along Texas Creek we enjoyed some of the more open views into the meadows. One of the highlights was that we saw two female moose ahead of us. They seemed to notice us. They were at least a 100 yards ahead. They moved slowly on their way and we never saw them again.
The next photo was the signpost where the actual CT/CDT from Prospector Gulch joins the Texas Creek trail. It didn't show on the maps we had on hand but it was still salt in the wound of the mistake that we had made for the day.
The next photo is the signpost at the well-marked junction where the CT/CDT leaves the Texas Creek Trail and heads for Cottonwood Pass. We had originally considered this option with our hike from Lake Ann. However, wanting the 2nd night of backpack camping at another Lake we decided on our current plan of meeting at Hartenstein Lake rather than heading to Cottonwood Pass for a shuttle pickup.
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| CT/CDT Cottonwood Pass Jct sign |
A mile or so after the Cottonwood Pass Jct we met the next junction for Brown's Pass. It was 4:27pm in the afternoon. We knew at this point our original plan of hitting camp at 5pm was out. Even 6pm was out which shows how long our day was becoming. If one continued on the Texas Creek Trail it would head up into Magdalene Gulch which ends just below Magdalene Mtn which is a 13er we climbed several years ago from the Pine Creek side.
Just 50 feet from this latest junction was the crossing of Texas Creek. It was a difficult crossing which we had looked 50 feet up and downstream for a crossing to keep us dry. We finally settled on the most direct crossing which contained some long but ultimately do-able steps.
We met another silver lining here at the Texas Creek crossing. For most of the day I had the understanding that we would have a 2000 foot climb up to Brown's Pass here at the tail-end of our day. This was becoming a bigger deal as the miles also added up for us. We also noticed that during our time on the Texas Creek trail we continued to slightly ascend eventually getting near 10,770. We were desperately hoping there wouldn't be a big descent down to Texas Creek before the Pass ascent. Thankfully at this crossing we found we could keep all of our hard earned elevation gain. The ascent to Brown's Pass would be more like 1300 feet and not 2000. A small victory on the day! We took a 10 minute rest stop before this crossing to load up on some much needed food and calories. It was also our 2nd water filter stop of the day. We each wanted a liter of water to get us up and over the pass.
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| Crossing Texas Creek |
We took the ascent up the pass slow and steady. Some rain came down upon us again and we even heard a thunder clap. We began to contemplate what we would do at the pass if it was storming. Thankfully, the skies cleared up a bit by the time we made it up there.
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| Ascending Brown's Pass |
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| Approaching Brown's Pass |
Brown's Pass though is a beautiful spot. The Pass is nice and open with views in 360 degrees. I spent a few minutes here several years ago during my loop around Mt. Yale. We headed down from the pass with two more miles to go to reach my father at the camp. When we arrived he showed us a potential camp site and we were sold. There seemed to be a string of good sites in this area right where the Hartenstein Lake trail begins.
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| Brown's Pass |
We made some friends with the neighbors there who helped us get a fire started and we got our camp setup, ending a very long day. We had carried MREs for supper and ate them up with such a hunger after all those miles. We didn't carry our camp chairs for the evening and so made seats out of our pack covers on the ground to sit around the fire. There were a few mosquitos around but they seemed to depart as things got darker and cooler.
July 2, Hartenstein Lake Trail
Camp Elevation: 11,209 ft.
Hartenstein Lake Elevation: 11,449 ft.
Distance: 2.50 mi.
Distance: 2.50 mi.
Total Ascent: 492ft.
Total Descent: 492ft.
Start Time: 9:29am
End Time: 10:49am
Total Descent: 492ft.
Start Time: 9:29am
End Time: 10:49am
We took our time in the morning today after the long day from yesterday. We viewed this as a rest and recovery day anyways. The only plan we had later in the day was to drive into the Halfmoon Creek area. We let the boys sleep in a bit and had some light breakfast at camp. We left our camp setup when we set out for the morning hike up to Hartenstein Lake. Compared to yesterday, this was a relatively easy stroll of just over a mile. It quickly got into nice views of the basin around the Lake. The last time I was up here was in winter when we were snowshoeing with everything covered and white. The trail approaches the lake on the north side and we found the willows and vegetation to be quite thick. There didn't seem to be any wide open shorelines on this side of the lake. We did do some exploring and found a path that moves through the outlet of the lake and onto a peninsula into the lake. There was an awesome camp spot in this area. We took a nice sit on a rock just in the lake. At the same time we sent my father back to camp and he was going to get ready to start the hike out ahead of us.
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| Approaching Hartenstein Lake 13er Turner Peak in the background |
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| Beautiful spot with views of Mt. Yale |
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| Hartenstein Lake outlet |
July 2, Hike Out to Denny Creek TH
Camp Elevation: 11,209 ft.
Trailhead Elevation: 9,949 ft.
Distance: 2.47 mi.
Distance: 2.47 mi.
Total Descent: 1,242ft.
Start Time: 11:16am
End Time: 12:27pm
Start Time: 11:16am
End Time: 12:27pm
We were back at the camp for just under a half hour to pack up the tent and our remaining gear. We also filtered enough water to hopefully get us through the hike back down to the trailhead. It was warm and sunny outside so we definitely each wanted at least a half liter. We gave my father a 15 minute head start and did catch him along the way. The name of the game on the hike out was mostly to find the shade and keep moving. We made it out to the Denny Creek trailhead at 12:30pm. We were surprised how many different license plates we found from all over the US! There must have been a good crowd on Mt. Yale today.
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| Creek crossing as we left camp |
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| Junction for the Mt. Yale Trail |
Track:
I have a track and waypoints from the activity all contained in the embedded Google Map. Check it out and use at your own risk.
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