Blue Lake (Rawah Wilderness, Colorado)

Trip dates: Dec 08-09, 2018

Blue Lake

Caltopo map here:  caltopo.com/m/718R

This was my first visit to the Rawah Wilderness.  The winter trails aren't nearly as well tracked as in RMNP so be prepared to work hard.  All of my pictures are from Day 2.

campsite just before Blue Lake

I'm beginning to think that alcohol stoves are the way to go year round.  The times required to melt snow are long when it's cold (15 minutes or so when outside temperature is 5-10 deg F), but winter nights are so long it doesn't really matter.   

I did learn something really valuable about alcohol stoves on this trip.  I made a larger version of the Kojin Stove that has a larger fuel capacity.  My local grocery store stopped selling yellow bottle HEET for some reason but I wanted to test the stove anyway so I used 91% rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol.  At home, where temperatures were much warmer, it worked great.  When it was 5 degrees the water in the rubbing alcohol froze and wouldn't light.  Luckily I had brought the smaller Kojin stove and HEET I bought on the drive upas backup so everything was fine.  

Snow melting with alcohol stove and 1.3L pot. Note the Gatorade bottle partially buried in the snow to keep it upright. This is useful when pouring snowmelt into the bottle.

A larger volume pot is nice for snow melting since the by-volume water content of snow is only ~10%.

Approach to Blue Lake

Red shading indicates slopes of 35-45 degrees which correspond to the highest probabilty of slide avalanches.

I'd planned a much longer route but I got a little nervous about the slopes around Blue Lake and possible avalanches.  I don't have any real avalanche training so I played it safe.

My partially covered tracks from the previous day.

Epilogue

After getting back to the trail head I drove a bit further west down CO 14/Poudre Canyon Rd towards Cameron Pass and Nokhu Crags.  These wound up being the best mountain views of the weekend.  

Looking east towards Iron Mountain in the Neota Wilderness (just north of the Never Summer Range)

Looking south towards Nokhu Crags (left), Mount Mahler (middle), Braddock Peak (right).

Looking east. From left to right: Nokhu Crags , Static Peak, Braddock Peak, Richtofen Peak, Mahler Peak, Seven Utes. I swear this is the only time I've taken pictures while standing on the centerline.