Lost Lake Overnight (Late Spring)
Dates: June 3-5, 2022 (Fri-Sun)Trip Report #: 542Partner: Nate Arganbright
Lost Lake Overnight (~22 miles, 2.5 days)
An enjoyable early season fitness hike.
Intro
With alpine climbing season just around the corner, Nate and I decided to do an overnight hike for the weekend. It would be nice to dial down our overnight setup and pack weight, as well as get some early-season fitness. We decided to hike up to Lost Lake in the northeast corner of Rocky Mountain National Park. Not wanting to burn a couple of nights on overnight permits (RMNP allows each individual 7 nights in the park), we camped at some established sites just outside the RMNP boundary. We spent Saturday hiking up to just above Lost Lake. I would have liked to summit one of the peaks in the area (Rowe or "Little No Name" looked like worthy objectives) but we didn't have quite enough time. We spent two enjoyable evenings camping out.
A unique aspect to this trip was that the trail goes through an area that was consumed by the Cameron Peak Fire of Fall 2020. This was a major fire that burned through an area of 208,913 acres of the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests in Larimer and Jackson Counties and Rocky Mountain National Park. I enjoyed photographing some of the results of the fire.
Below is a map showing the trail we took and then some photos of our weekend adventure. Enjoy.
Map
Day 1: DUNRAVEN TRAILHEAD --> CAMP
We left late Friday afternoon after Nate finished work. We hiked in 4 miles and camped, shortly before the National Park boundary.
Day 2: CAMP --> LOST LAKE --> camp
We hiked up to Lost Lake. We brought all of our stuff to keep flexible to camp up high, but it looked like weather was going to move in plus we did not have a permit to camp in the actual Lost Lake area, so we had lunch, explored a bit above Lost Lake, relaxed at Lost Lake for about an hour, and then headed back down valley to camp where we had the night before.
Day 3: CAMP --> dunraven trailhead
We had a leisurely morning enjoying coffee and books. Our camp was located in the burn area from the Cameron Peak Fire of Fall 2020, so I enjoyed doing a bit of photography of the burn area. We arrived back at the trailhead by 10am. Nate spent the rest of the day driving to Loveland to collect gardening supplies and do some gardening, while I worked on my trip report.