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July 8-10 – Colorado – Yankee Doodle Lake
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I had the week of July 4th off work. My last week of work would be the following week. I helped my brother move on July 2 or 3, and then was hanging out around Denver. I was enjoying it and was thinking I’d stay in Denver the entire week. But it got hot on Thursday and I checked the forecast for the weekend: even hotter. So I got my stuff ready and asked my brother for a location recommendation west of Boulder.
He said to go check out the Jenny Lake area (which is about 10 miles west of Nederland). So I did. There are two main lakes up there (Yankee Doodle, and Jenny) plus various smaller lakes. It’s nine miles of forest service road to get there. The road was a pain in the ass – tons and tons of medium-sized rocks. It took me 2.5 hours to drive those 9 miles.
Once I got to the lake, it was wonderful. I got up there Friday afternoon. There weren’t many campsites on the way up to the lake. There is a handful right by the lake though. Only one of them was occupied with someone set up to camp. I got a very good spot where someone had leveled out the ground to make a parking spot. The lake is surrounded on most sides by a steep hill, so some of the camp sites don’t have good flat spots for tents or parking.
The road was covered with a big snowdrift right after Yankee Doodle Lake. Jenny Lake is about a mile down the road. Over the weekend, some people got through the drift and smashed it down a lot. Now that it’s a few weeks later, I’m sure it’s pretty easy to get through.
There is a big ridgeline up above the two lakes. This is either the continental divide, or is close to it. At the top of the ridge you can see a LONG ways in all directions. It’s up at 11,500 feet and looking east, you can see over/past all the hills in some spots and see Boulder (or some city that way) and beyond. I don’t think there are any official hiking trails around this lake, but hiking was very easy because there were many tree clearings that you could see up to the ridges easily. I hiked a bit the afternoon I arrived and decided I wanted to hike along the big ridge. The next day I did so.
This is a really interesting area. Clearly someone had worked really hard a really long time ago to make this pass. The road continues up past the lakes and over the ridgeline. It appears they had originally tried to tunnel straight through right from Yankee Doodle Lake, but they only made it about 30 feet into the hill and gave up on that. They continued the road upwards and make a very short tunnel up near the top of the ridge. While driving back down the FS road, I spoke to an old guy that was mountain biking and he told me all about the pass. It was a railroad that was built over a hundred years ago. He told me about a location on the other side of the ridge where a helper locomotive flew off the tracks and down a big drop off (The engineer had noticed it’s brakes failed right at the top of the descent so he jumped out and let it go on it’s own)
Anyways – the hiking here was amazing. This was definitely the most scenic hiking I’ve ever done. When I first looked up at the ridgeline the first afternoon, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make it up there. It turned out to be quite easy. (I didn’t follow the road, I went up an older path/road (what had been a wagon trail) that was a shorter and much steeper route up to where the tunnel is.
Also, the lake made for a VERY refreshing swim.
I could only stay until Sunday because I had to get back to Denver to fly out Monday for my last week of work. Because of the FS road condition, I’ll only drive back up there if I’m planning to stay at least a full week.
PICTURES
This is the road going west from the highway. It follows the current railroad until that railroad enters a really long tunnel. (That rail line replaced the original line that was built passing up by the lakes I visited).
On the way up the Forest Service road.
The camping spot I used:
This is Yankee Doodle Lake (the one I camped next to)
This tunnel is up above the lakes. I thought it a little strange to make the tunnel so close to the top of the hill. I guess that must have been easier than blasting the rock entirely out of the way
Up at the top of the ridge
Having lunch at the top
Looking the other way
Can someone explain these? They were up at/near key spots (places with views, and there was a huge one above the tunnel). Who made them? When? What are/were they used for?
This was along the old wagon road the went up to the tunnel. I walked up along the ridge on the right third of the picture.
I wonder how much snow piles up here in the winter?
Driving back down. This is representative of the road