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TriP Reports

Roger's Pass Lake (JPW)

9/17/2017

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Trip Date:  Sept 10, 2017
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Roger's Pass Lake
Spontaneous trip up to Roger's Pass Lake in the James Peak Wilderness.  Started at the East Portal trailhead near Moffat Tunnel.  Interactive map of the trip here: ​https://caltopo.com/m/LBGT
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Looking southwest back towards Roger's Pass Lake (out of view). Haystack Mt. is the little mountain in the front.
I reached Roger's Pass Lake (opening photo) but didn't stay long.  Under normal circumstances I would have definitely gone up to Roger's Pass and spent several hours above the treeline but it was looking stormy.  I'm always interested in taking a different way back and I had noticed on my GPS that there was a trail that would eventually meet up with the main trail so I decided to go for it.  

​Once I made my way across the several hundred yards to the trail it was pretty obvious that this wasn't an active trail.  It was pretty rough but I decided to take it anyway.  (In the Caltopo map link I provided earlier you can see that the trail doesn't actually go very far down from Heart lake).  
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Once I made it into the dense forest the trail disappeared completely.  This wasn't a problem at all.  ​More of a welcome surprise.  I thought, "what the hell, it never did start raining".  So I headed back up the hillside a ways to get a look into the valley.  After a while I came across a game trail that I followed the trail for over a mile.  I'm think it was used primarily by Moose based on the print I found.
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 I found more tree tumors (below, left) and was led to fantastic water sources.  
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These enormous boulders were everywhere throughout the forest, like tombstones of giants.  
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I eventually got the view of the valley I wanted.  
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Looking down into a grassy area. If you look very closely you can see (or imagine) the game path I was following. The flat area at the bottom was filled with chest high stalks that were totally flattened along the path.
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Looking back up from the grassy area in previous picture.
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Another hidden gem found off the trails. This looks like it could have been leftover from mining days (pre 1900???).
A beautiful sunset framed Long's Peak as I got back to the Boulder area.  
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    Travis Briles

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  • Home
  • Climate Change and Colorado Wildfires
  • Trip Reports
  • Skills/Gear
    • Intro, External Sources and Misc.
    • Food and Water
    • Shelters
    • Backpacks
    • Sleeping
    • Clothing
    • Winter Camping
    • A Shoe Odyssey
    • Foot Care
    • Maps, Navigation and Weather
    • Off-Trail Route Planning
    • The Perfect Headlight/Flashlights?
    • Misc Small Stuff
    • Photography/Camera
    • Gear Repair and MYOG
  • Places
    • Flatirons
    • Rocky Mountain National Park
    • Indian Peaks Wilderness
    • Lost Creek Wilderness
    • Gore Range
    • Glacier National Park
    • Wind River Range
    • Utah
  • Plants and Wildlife
  • Contact
  • To Do
  • About