Ptarmigan Lake and Jones Mountain

San Isabel National Forest

(map link)

Ptarmigan Lake is a popular trailhead and I'd already seen that the cars spill out of it into some 4x4 parking and out along the road if you get there very late. I was the first into the parking lot at 7AM, though very nearly not the first parked. No other cars arrived as we first folks sorted ourselves, used the toilet, and got going across the bridge and up the trail.

00: sign with a hat hanging from it — The sign at the south end of the lot: Ptarmigan Lake, elevation 12,132, 3 miles.

There's a few views as it climbs out on a rocky slope at the start, but mostly the trail passes through forest. It is a hard packed, wide, and obviously well used trail.

01: rocky trail and sunlignt coming — Hiking into the sun up the rocky, well used trail.

02: pointy peak with a cliff side — Turner Peak (from yesterday) is right across the valley. This is the side with the sudden drop off.

03: tall trees — Then turning into the forest.

04: ridge over trees — A view of Gladstone Ridge along the way.

05: white flowers with colorful spots — You don't have to go to the alpine to see the little matte saxifrage and its spots.

06: twisted flowers — Some parts of the forest seemed carpeted with this sickletop lousewort, which has a lovely twist to its flowers.

The trail crosses an old road. It presents another route up with much easier parking since very few seem to take it. There's not much of a path plodded into the surface. It does go longer from a few feet lower to get to the crossing. The trail is marked out with sticks so no one gets lost along the crossing, then climbs some more.

07: decaying roadway — Old road crossing.

08: bright and yellow — Bright yellow asters, which might be the same species as the last set or not even the same genus. (Another heartleaf Arnica?)

The forest started to give way and the trail began to flirt with Ptarmigan Creek, the outflow of the lake.

09: Ptarmigan Creek — Different flowers grow around Ptarmigan Creek and other wet areas.

10: blue flowers with points out the back — Great bushes of tall larkspur line the trail in spots.

There's a number of ponds, some quite large, below Ptarmigan Lake. Here, the great amount of use starts to make the trail hard to find. Trails go off to camping spots and fishing spots all over the place. The camp trails can be especially well used. Following the crossing of Ptarmigan Creek, trails going off to the first lake or up along the creek looked equally likely to be the official trail. I went right, along the creek, and this seems to have been correct. At another turn, I got it wrong. I used the placement of a camp as a clue for the correct direction, but that camp is inappropriately set practically on the trail. Things settled out a little with more climbing toward the lake.

11: water and trees and peaks — Small, unnamed pond with Jones Mountain behind it.

12: brown bowl of water and grey rocks tall behind — Larger, unnamed pond with Gladstone Ridge behind it and something that is not the trail going down to it.

15: large lump of a peak — Mount Yale to the north. Turner Peak is at the far left with a bit of Jones Mountain in front of it.

16: climbing to a lip of rock — Still a little bit more to climb on this trail. It is a little less wide and well used here than at the start.

With a little bit of above tree line climbing, I arrived at Ptarmigan Lake.

18: water over bushes — A first look at Ptarmigan Lake with the trail continuing up at the far side.

20: lots of lake — A much longer look at Ptarmigan Lake and the long Jones Mountain behind.

My original plan was not just to the lake, but up the pass beyond it to get that extra bit of view a pass promises. I could see two trails going between. The well used fishing trail at the edge of the lake seemed to have taken over for the higher built trail as the one that everyone used. I decided to go higher, which ultimately was a nicer trail even if getting slightly overgrown in spots. I wasn't the only one using it.

22: above the lake — Looking back at Ptarmigan Lake on the higher, built trail, hard to see on the right. The other trail scrambles up to the pass in a well used, steep track.

23: valley on the far side — The new view from the pass.

A fishing couple were coming up the other side. They'd driven their ATV up the county road on the far side for the short hike to the lake. Besides my fellow 7AM arrivers, there were a couple more filtering up the trail and finding a spot along the side of the lake. I got to noticing that the high point of long Jones Mountain was just a half mile away, although 1000 feet up. It is another 13k peak with 1000 feet of prominence. I still had enough water and the weather was holding (even if predictions were to the contrary) and suddenly my plans went awry as the peak was added to the itinerary. Since 1000 feet in half a mile is a little steep, I decided to take the road up for as far as it went and then the less steep slope to go up. It didn't really look that steep, so I'd come down the more direct route. Plan made, I set about executing it.

24: short, yellow flowers — Yellows here are a very short sulphur buckwheat and stonecrops just starting to bloom.

25: more water in the green — A small pond on the far side. Above, the clouds start coming to fulfill the weatherman's prediction.

26: bright white framed in blue — Such happy blue columbines.

Shortly before the trail ran into the current road, it ran into an old road. I decided without too much investigation that this much be the climbing road and proceeded to follow what isn't even getting much animal use and is falling down the mountain. It was certainly more difficult than it needed to be especially since it simply ran into the new road further up, at which point I had the open, but full of loose rocks, new road to follow. It is differently difficult.

27: quad by a pond — Looking down the valley. The road must be an amazing drive, but the couple did pick that little quad ATV as their vehicle for a reason.

29: lily, close up — Spears of mountain deathcamas continue to bloom in all the wetter spots.

Quite a bit more view of the valley opened up after leaving the saddle and climbing higher. Roads go deep into it. The primary purpose of them was likely mining. I was crossing a few mining claims as I went.

30: green and road wandered — Looking down on more of the South Cottonwood Creek valley from between a pair of outcrops.

31: mountains and valley — Emma Burr Mountain in shadow with Mineral Creek (and a road) coming down it. Mineral Basin is to the right with South Cottonwood creek coming down it. Even the names recall mining.

33: blue flowers — Ptarmigan Lake and Mount Yale across some penstemen.

34: fat, pink, pods — Seed pods can be as interesting as flowers, sometimes. (A vetch.)

35: blue flowers — Some bluebells that didn't hang.

The road took me up higher than I expected it would, but it gave up with 500 feet still to climb. I just followed the ridge the rest of the way to the peak, topped with a large cairn. I was almost beaten to the top by a woman who just came up the direct way and didn't take so many pictures of flowers on the way. She was a local on her eighth trip up, and basically tagged the cairn and zipped right back down again. The sky, which had been oscillating between clouded and bright, was looking like it might well break quite soon, so she had reason to be quick. I was a little slower. Sure, it could break soon, but it wasn't going to do it now.

36: easy ridge and a lot of peaks — Looking back along the easy ridge I took up, now with a lot more peaks visible.

37: long ridge — North along the rest of long Jones Mountain to Turner Peak. Middle Cottonwood Creek cuts between them. Also with lots more peaks behind now.

39: mat of yellow flowers — A lovely mat of yellow flowers. (Few seeded Draba?)

40: blue sticking out of a mat of fuzzy leaves — Tiny pale alpine forget-me-nots sticking out of their tiny mat of fuzzy leaves.

41: ridge dividing oceans — Southwest to the Great Divide. The Continental Divide Trail follows it on this side of the mountains. The Colorado Trail follows the CDT.

The only really steep bit for the more direct route is right at the top, where it is bare rocks and slippery. There's an easy way around that to the north, so I went that way.

42: steep slope to some puddles — Looking down the direct route back to the pass and Ptarmigan Lake Trail. Also a look along the top of Gladstone Ridge.

43: Cottonwood Pass — Looking down on Cottonwood Pass and a much easier way down that first slope.

I got distracted when I spotted something man made on the large flat below the peak and went quite a bit more north than I needed to investigate it.

44: fence on the ground and posts — Old snow measurement equipment?

Then I headed back over to the ridge to follow it down. There is a trail along the bottom of the steep, rocky slide that facilitates going around it, should one want to. (As I did.) Below that, I could just wander off the ridge and find a little less steep stuff, if the grade was getting to me. Halfway down, it started to hail on me. There wasn't much and it didn't last long. The only thunder was in the distance.

45: dark and light — Some paintbrush color variations.

46: storm breaks — Raining into the valley south of South Cottonwood Creek.

There didn't seem to be anyone at the lake while the storm broke its little break, but they materialized very quickly once it was done. I decided to try the low path on the way back, which is how I got to know that it is a scruffy, less comfortable to walk path. Plus, I kept having to negotiate passing people.

48: track in the dirt and a lake — This low path randomly drops two feet to the lake level, then climbs back up suddenly to get around a bush.

I stopped for a snack with a view looking out over the other lakes, then continued down. That weather was going to rethink its short duration. I did have a distraction on the way. I looked down through the trees to see something that looked like the stacked logs of a cabin, so went exploring. It was stacked logs alright. I'd almost got to the road crossing again and the logs were stacked up to be taken away. The roads in this valley are primarily logging.

52: open space — Back to that early open space along the trail, but now with no sun to stare into.

The rain held off until I was nearly to the car, and then started slowly enough that I could be in the car before it really got going.

53: squirrel with grass in its mouth — Squirrel! It's got a load of grass in its mouth.

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