Loveland Pass West hike, Colorado

This was a fantastic hike for our first day at elevation in Colorado. It required some elevation gain, but not too much too quickly. Most of the walk was along a ridge-rimmed bowl, with unparalleled 360 degree views. At the end point, marked by a stone wind shelter, mountains are visible in every direction. The parking lot seemed impossibly far away, though it was only about 1.8 miles along the ridge and perhaps 1.3 miles as the crow flies.

Occasionally a snow field edged with reddish orange appears along the route. Mike suggested the color is from the clay in the area's soil.

Mountains visible from the pass include Keystone and Breckinridge ski areas, the Ten Mile Range, the Saguache Range, the Williams Fork Range and Mt.Sniktau.

At the stone wind shelter, we met an enthusiastic, wide-eyed young man from the Chicago area who was traveling west using his XM-outfitted car and camper, a GPS and a laptop to offload all of his photos. His goal was to make San Francisco and spend time on the west coast, but he was so enamored by the mountains of Colorado that he said he might not make it. He planned to purchase the "Summit Hiker" book by local Mary Ellen Gilliland and start hiking the area. I told him that I could spend the entire summer in this area of Colorado and still not see all of the beautiful mountain ranges and passes.

Loveland Pass was built in 1879 and superseded Argentine pass, which at 13,132 feet was the area's first major east-west route. A must-see for everyone!

While here, we went for two geocaches in the area. The first, a micro cache, we found easily near the parking area. The second, about 500 feet up the trail in a group of boulders, proved more elusive and we gave up pretty quickly. That one will go down as a DNF (did not find).

More photos of Loveland Pass West:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vickijbrown/sets/72157622178959092/show

4 miles, 489' elevation gain
Destination: Stone wind shelter = 12,276 feet high (just below a perennial snow field)
Route: trail west from the parking area then north around the ridge around the alpine bowl
3 hours in total