Indian Peaks Wilderness: Mount Audubon and Isabelle Glacier

8/03/09
Northeast out of Aspen to Interstate 70, skirting Glenwood Springs, then east through Glenwood Canyon, one helluva good looking canyon even with a freeway cutting through it. Ran smack into an astounding storm over Vail Pass.The storm behind me I considered camping along Dillon Reservoir but didn’t, proceeding instead over the Continental Divide (through a tunnel, actually) and down to the small town of Idaho Springs and a ramshackle motel room with a channelized creek running on the other side of the fence just a few yards from my motel door.

The next morning I got a hotel room on the outskirts of Denver and spent two days commuting into the city, spending most of my time at the Denver Art Museum, which was swell. I also enjoyed the Denver Library right across the plaza from the museum, and visited both locations of the Tattered Cover bookstore. After a couple of hours puttering around Boulder I headed back into the mountains.

My destination was the the Brainard Lake Recreation Area, a national forest site so popular it has admission fees. I handed my annual pass to the man at the gate and he told me that it had expired. It was August! I'd been our for over a year! A nice guy, though. He let me enter, telling me to make sure I re-upped when I got back out into town. I got a site at Pawnee Campground on the shores of 10,360’ Brainard Lake, right outside the Indian Peak Wilderness, at the base of the Continental Divide. It was good to be camping again after three straight nights in motels.

Brainard Lake

Mount Audubon
On Monday morning I hiked up to Mount Audubon (13,323‘). The hike was four miles one way and gained about 2700’, but a fierce headwind turned these rather modest dimensions into a tough slog. There were some good views along the way; in fact the surrounding area seeming more attractive than the pile of rocks I ended up on. Several impromptu rock shelters on the peak indicated these bitter winds were not uncommon. Sitting behind one in the sun was very pleasant, though it cost me the views. But without the shield the wind was just devastating. I passed maybe a dozen people on my way back but the parking lot was packed. Obviously there was more to the area than I realized so I decided to stay another night. I took cover in my tent in preparation for an imminent storm, which never did break.

Mount Audubon

Afternoon Storm Bearing down on Mount Audubon

Isabelle Glacier
The next day's hike to Isabelle Glacier would prove to be my favorite hike in the Rockies. The trail started along beaver ponds and wetlands and rose quickly to flowery meadows with views of lower peaks, some significant snowfields suggesting the periglacial landscape ahead. Lake Isabelle came quickly and offered such a fine reflection of the snowy peaks of the continental divide that it would suffice as a fine destination for most hikes. But this one was really just getting started.

Lake Isabelle

The lake is right near timberline, so park-like groves were interspersed with more rocky and snow-patched terrain. A catalog of reflections. Above the lake the rocks took over but only gradually, as wet meadows provided yet another picturesque foreground to Shoshoni, Apache, and Navajo Peaks. I exchanged greetings with a trio of hikers along the lake and these would prove to be the only people I would see all day. Where the people in all those cars were headed I never did find out.

Lake Isabelle

Lake Isabelle

Lake Isabelle

The new star of the hike was the creek, South Saint Vrain Creek in fact, pouring down via a combination of rocky waterfalls and meadowy meanders. One narrow chute was particularly appealing, with grand views back over Lake Isabelle into the morning sun.  The rocks rose to the occasion. Good rocks.

From there the trail became more of a rocky scramble, passing through yet another dripping chasm. Then the peaks finally took over, though in their gray and white duo-color they were far from the stars of the day. Still, they were the continental divide.

Next came Icy Lake, much smaller and more alpine. Striated snowfields dropped straight to the lake. More fun with reflections.

The question, though, was where was Isabelle Glacier? Had it diminished to these blocks of frozen snowfield? No, finally there it was, unmistakably, the blue ice and crevasses of a real glacier. But it was down, not up: most of the glacier filled a huge bowl, meltwater revealing the beginnings of a blue glacial lake not at the foot of the glacier but rather beneath the glacier. The only time I’d seen that before was on the top of Oregon’s South Sister. The temptation to walk into and around the glacier was tempered by the desire not to fall in and die of hypothermia. The whole scene was hard to get a bead on but finally I came up with a nice tribute to John Twachtman.

What can I say, the walk back was just as good. The hike was long but not steep so I wasn’t terribly tired, and I had the energy to examine more closely some of the finer points I had passed over too quickly on my way up. I did fall once on the way down, hard, jamming my left shoulder, which quickly grew stiff and sore. Otherwise, what a day! Dinner, a sweet nap, and then reading in my tent, where it was basically too hot. A breeze picked up here and there, but rain did not appear likely. I was now officially rooting for late afternoon thunderstorms.