Rocky Mountain National Park Hikes: Upper Glacier Gorge Lakes

You know how sometimes you’ve been wanting to do something for so long and you’ve built it up in your head, and then you finally get to do it and it’s not as amazing as you were hoping, and you end up being really disappointed?

This was not that.

It was, however, something I’d been wanting to do for so long.

Backpacking in Rocky requires a permit and permits sell out extremely quickly. The particular permit we needed for this hike is one of the most competitive. I applied at exactly the minute permits went on sale in 2019 and did not get it. I applied again in 2020 and did not get it. Lather, rinse, repeat for 2021. Finally, in 2022, I got it! A lot of excited yelping and jumping up and down ensued.

Anyway.

Our outing began at the Glacier Gorge Trailhead, one of the most popular trailheads in Rocky. Parking is absurdly hard to come by, so we left our car at the park-n-ride and took the free shuttle to the trailhead. The Glacier Gorge backcountry campsite — our home for the night — is located about 3.5 miles (5.5 km) up Glacier Gorge Trail, past Alberta and Glacier Falls and Mills and Jewel Lakes. We’ve hiked this section of trail before… for more detailed information, see my previous post. The waterfalls were raging this morning and both lakes were looking particularly beautiful.

The Glacier Gorge backcountry site is spacious, with lots of flat ground, logs and stumps to sit on, and pretty good views. It can see why it’s such a popular site. Due to its popularity, this particular backcountry campsite requires the use of WAG or Restop bags for human waste. Also, hard-sided bear canisters are required in Rocky, and all food, garbage, toiletries, and scented items other than DEET must be stored in the locked canister and placed 70 adult-sized steps away from camp.

We arrived at our campsite around 8:30am and, as expected, it was still occupied by the previous night’s campers (the photo above was taken later in the day… don’t worry, I didn’t walk into someone else’s site and take photos of their tent). So we loaded up our day packs, stashed our backpacking packs and bear canister nearby (pro tip: the giant black garbage bags are a great way to keep your pack dry), and continued up the trail for the remaining 1.5 miles (2.4 km) to Black Lake. I’d been to Black Lake twice before, although these previous trips were in winter or semi-winter conditions; things looked a little different this time around.

If you look at a trail map of Rocky, you’ll see that this hike ends at Black Lake. Officially, that is accurate. However, unofficially there are four more lakes that can be reached by following an unmaintained trail into the cirque above Black Lake. The park doesn’t advertise it and there is no signage for these lakes… presumably to prevent unprepared tourists from meandering way into the backcountry and getting lost. But if you do your research and are prepared (we studied the map and photos of the route in advance, used my GPS app for navigation, and packed plenty of layers, food, and water), hiking to these lakes is allowed. And absolutely worth the effort!

To reach these lakes, follow the path along the east shore of Black Lake to the outlet stream. The trail then climbs rather steeply alongside the cascading creek.

Eventually, we reached the top of the hill and found ourselves staring at a vast expanse of tundra. This upper portion of Glacier Gorge is much larger than we were expecting.

Not long after this point, the trail splits. Left leads to Blue Lake. Right leads to Green Lake and Italy Lake. A sharper right leads to Frozen Lake. We took the sharp right first, following the trail to Frozen Lake… the most distant and highest of the four.

In all honestly, I shouldn’t be referring to it as a ‘trail’ at this point. Occasionally there was a visible path, but for the most part we were following cairns through the landscape. The rocky, wet, muddy landscape. The Colorado mountains received so much rain this summer that the ground was completely saturated. Between the creek crossings, wet plants, and endless mud, we soon found ourselves somewhat saturated as well. The air was damp too, and clouds hung low over the mountains. I know we need the rain, but there’s a happy medium between drought and deluge, and it would be nice if we could find it.

The weather definitely could have been better for this trip. It also could have been worse, so I can’t complain too much. But some sunshine would have been nice, if only to dry out the ground and the many many wet rocks we had to navigate. Between slippery slabs and puddles of mud, this hike required more acrobatics than we were expecting.

But with careful route-finding and navigation, we eventually made it all the way up and over to Frozen Lake, at an elevation of about 11,700 feet (3566 m). Based on my research, I went into this hike expecting Frozen Lake to be my favorite of the four, and it was. Between the deep turquoise color, the crystal clear depths, and the way it’s tucked back into a nook surrounded by sheer rocks… it was so gorgeous!

I wish we’d spent more time here, but it started sprinkling, and the sky was overall not looking promising, and we still had three more lakes to visit, so after about 15 minutes we headed off. The official route to Green Lake involves retracing your steps back to the main “trail” and then following the middle branch back to Green Lake. We decided to just cut across, wrapping around the base of The Spearhead and traversing the talus field to reach Green Lake. Walking across talus is never the most pleasant thing to do, but this route was much shorter and we didn’t have to lose and regain as much elevation, so I stand by it. However, I’d only recommend doing this if you’re comfortable with scrambling. Also, as this is tundra, try to step on rocks whenever possible to avoid crushing the fragile alpine plants.

This route brought us to Green Lake from above. From this vantage point, we could see that Green Lake is accurately named.

It’s not labeled on some maps, but just behind and above Green Lake is Italy Lake… so named because it’s shaped somewhat like Italy. It’s a tiny lake that sits right in front of a very tall and sheer mountainside… it wasn’t easy to capture in photos.

From here, we descended back to Green Lake and then made our way over to the outlet stream, which is the approximate location of the “trail.” We did find cairns, but there wasn’t much of a path. Nonetheless, the cairns led us straight back toward the main trail – across some creeks and through some mud, of course – and to our final lake of the day: Blue Lake. Rather than being tucked in a nook, Blue Lake sits on top of a bench overlooking lower Glacier Gorge.

Blue Lake was, in fact, the bluest lake we’d seen all day. Whoever initially stumbled upon these lakes clearly decided to just name all of them based on appearance.

Much to our surprise, the fog finally began to lift and the sun made an appearance, so we decided to hang out at Blue Lake for a while.

But eventually it was time to head back down. It was already after 1:00pm and we hadn’t set up our campsite yet. So we made our way back to the main trail, coming to a stop when we encountered five elk grazing on both sides of the path. This included two mothers and two babies, and we weren’t about to walk between them, so we had to wait for them to move away before we could descend along the inlet stream to Black Lake. From this vantage point, it was clear that Black Lake is also accurately named. The dark color of the granite lakebed is responsible for the dark color of the lake.

Our campsite was empty when we returned, so we grabbed our stashed gear and quickly got set up. Much to our delight, the weather had held and we were able to set up the tent and cook some food without getting wet. It did rain later in the evening, but by that point we were nice and dry in our tent.

And that was it. The next morning, we packed up our (very wet) gear and headed back to the trailhead. From there, it was back home. And then, for me, back to work the next day for the start of fall semester. I’m so glad I finally secured the backpacking permit that allowed us to do this trip. It was the perfect way to wrap up a pretty amazing summer!

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Read about our other Rocky backpacking trips here.

For more information on backpacking gear and preparations, see this post.

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The Important Stuff:

• Getting there: This trail departs from Glacier Gorge trailhead along Bear Lake Road; parking fills well before dawn in the summer. I highly recommend taking the free park shuttle from the park-n-ride instead. It’s so much easier.
  
• Fees and passes: There is a $25/car daily or $35/car weekly entrance fee to RMNP; interagency passes are accepted. In addition, if you plan to backpack as we did, you must have a permit. They are highly competitive and cost $36.
  
• Timed entry: If you plan to do this as a day hike and are not camping in the park, you will need a Bear Lake corridor timed entry permit to access this trailhead.
  
• Hiking: Our total roundtrip distance for this hike was 15.3 miles (24.6 km) with 2900 feet (884 m) of elevation gain. Exact statistics will vary depending on the routes you take through the upper gorge. Regardless, this would be a very long day hike, especially considering that the terrain in the upper gorge is not conducive to a rapid pace. From the trailhead to all the lakes and back to our campsite was 11.8 miles (19 km) and took us 8 hours.
  
• Where to stay: The Glacier Gorge backcountry site is the only option for overnight stays along this trail, and a permit is required.
  
• Other: If you plan to go beyond Black Lake, proper preparation is key. The route is not obvious, the terrain is rugged, you will be above tree line and exposed to weather, and there is no phone service. You’re also not likely to see many people. Bring plenty of food, water, layers, sun protection, the ten essentials, etc. I also recommend hiking poles and a satellite SOS device. Study the route in advance, bring a navigation system, and pick a day with a good weather forecast. You can’t see the incoming weather from Glacier Gorge, so you won’t really know if a storm is coming until it’s practically on top of you.