Prospect Trail-Mountain Village Telluride

The Prospect Trail traverses the spruce and fir forest across part of the Telluride Ski Area in southwest Colorado. The trail head is a branch off of the Village Trail near the St. Sophia Nature Center.

I started my hike at the free parking area on the southwest side of Telluride and walked east about 0.4 miles along the very scenic San Miguel River Trail to the free summer gondola. Along the way there is an interpretive sign at the Depot, a restored early train station. The first gondola stop is the St. Sophia Station and the Nature Center is to the left.

Near the trail head, there is an interpretive sign describing the history of skiing in the Telluride area. Most of the ski runs at Telluride are references to the area mining history. The first segment of trail passes through forested areas, chair lift openings, and open ski slope areas. 

The views are mostly to the mountains north of Telluride near the airport. This trail is open to hikers, mountain bikes and horses with mountain bikes probably the most common. I didn’t see any evidence that horse riders use this trail. There isn’t much elevation change in the first 2.5 miles or so to Prospect Creek.

After crossing the small Prospect Creek, the route climbs with switchbacks and crosses a scree slope area. There are more spectacular mountain views and some views down into the Mountain Village area.

The trail was easy to follow until I arrived at the Ute Park Express Ski Lift and the Topaten Nordic Ski Area. There is a trail junction before these two sites with the Prospect Loop to the left and the Prospect Trail to the right. I stayed to the right. Looking at the maps later, the loop returns to the Sophia Nature Center without going into Mountain Village. Staying on the Prospect Trail led into the also confusing Nordic Ski Area. A map of the ski loops is posted, but it didn’t show the Prospect Trail.

A sign pointing downhill toward Mountain Village said Enchanted Forest and there was a trail so I followed it through a narrow opening in the forest. The Enchanted Forest is a short section with some weather beaten art propped up against the trees. I saw at least four of these large cartoon images. 

This alternate route cuts some distance off the Prospect Trail and ends up in more or less the same place. The typical maps that hikers use don’t show all of the alternate ski route trails and roads that are available here. Even the local Telluride maps are somewhat confusing, but all the ski trails generally lead back to Mountain Village.

After the Enchanted Forest I followed Teddy’s Way. This segment led downhill through the outskirts of a residential area with some spectacular mountain homes. There are ski bridges passing over the paved roads.

I think the last part of the Prospect Trail merges with Teddy’s Way but I didn’t see the trail junction. Just before arriving in the Mountain Village area the route enters the Double Cabins Disk Golf Course and there were several groups firing disks at the chain flags. The Prospect Trail conveniently ends across the road from the Station Village Parking Gondola. I rode the gondola all the way back down into Telluride and returned back along the River Trail to the parking area.

My hike took 3:50 hours. I think I walked about 5.5 miles on the Prospect, Enchanted Forest, and Teddy’s Way Trails and another 0.8 mile on the River Trail. There is about 1000 feet of descent from St. Sophia to Mountain Village. It was about 60 F degrees at 9:50 AM and about 70 F at 1:40 PM. I carried 3 liters of water but only drank 2. Mountain hikes often face afternoon showers. There was rain in the Lizard Head area to the south as I finished but no rain during my hike.

Woods Lake Trail to Elk Creek

The Woods Lake Trail is one of several hikes that start at the Woods Lake campground, near Telluride in southwest Colorado. The trail head and campground is about 10 miles west of Telluride on Highway 145, then 8 miles south on Fall Creek Road. 

The Woods Lake Trail heads south into the Lizard Head Wilderness and is a route into the Navajo Lake Basin. As a wilderness area trail it is only open to hikers and horses.

The first few steps skirt the edge of Woods Lake with views toward Dolores, Middle, and Dunn Peaks. It is 4 miles to Navajo Lake and 2.5 miles to the Elk Creek Trail junction. The starting elevation at Woods Lake is 9423 feet and it is a 2200 foot climb to the Elk Creek junction.

The trail climbs through spruce, fir and aspen forest with occasional small open meadows and small creek crossings. Wildflowers were particularly lush near the small creeks. All the creeks but one had small bridges across them, no wet feet on this hike. This trail gets a lot of horse use and flies were a nuisance.

The second half of the hike is steeper than the first half. Near the top there are the ruins of an old cabin. 

The small meadows were rich with wildflowers in mid July. Bright red Indian Paintbrush was the most eye catching, with many waist high Larkspurs, Cow Parsnips, Love Roots, Blue Columbines, yellow asters, Geraniums, and Bluebells.

Eventually the trail emerges from the forest near the base of scree slope, with the Wood Lake Trail continuing to the right and the Elk Creek Trail continuing to the left. There is a trail sign at the junction that looked like it had been twisted causing the signs to point the wrong way.

The views west toward Lone Cone were the widest. One of the other trails at the Woods Lake trailhead travels toward Lone Cone. I saw 3 horse riders during my hike and 6 other hikers with a total of 5 dogs.

The Elk Creek Trail connects back down to the Wilson Mesa Trail and a long loop hike is possible. It took me 2:20 hours to reach the Elk Creek junction and I returned the way I came. The return hike took 1:30 hours and my total hike took 4:10 hours for about 5 miles. The temperature was about 70 F degrees in mid July and I carried and drank 3 liters of water. At 2:30 PM when I finished there was a typical late afternoon mountain rain shower lasting about 10 minutes.

Ice Lake Trail

The Ice Lake Trail is a 3 or 4 mile climb from about 10,000 feet at the trail head to 12,257 feet at the turquoise blue Ice Lake in a spectacular high mountain basin. The trail head is at the South Mineral Campground, about 2 miles north of Silverton, Colorado on Highway 550, then 3.5 miles west.

The South Mineral Creek Campground area had many visitors in mid July. There are interpretive signs near the trailhead describing efforts to improve the trout habitat in the South Fork Mineral Creek. The creek supports Brook Trout, and Rainbow Trout are stocked by the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

The habitat improvement project involves placing large boulders and logs in the stream to create pools and protect the banks. The trailhead parking area was overflowing on the day I hiked. The first segment of trail starts with switchbacks through spruce, fir, and aspen forest with views of the high peaks surrounding the valley.

On the way to the trail head, there is a 4WD road that leads to Clear Lake, one of the several small high elevation lakes in the area. There is a connecting trail from the road over to the main Ice Lake Trail that crosses below one of the many cascades and waterfalls that are visible along the way.

This stream crossing seems to have the remains of an old slippery looking bridge across it. A short distance further along the main trail, there is a side loop leading to a mining ruins site. There is a jumbled pile of destroyed wooden structures and a large metal boiler to see.

The route emerges from the forest and crosses a wildflower rich meadow below steep cliffs. Although the trail is named for mountain lakes, the wildflowers may be the main attraction of the Ice Lakes Trail. False Hellebore was in bloom, something not often seen.

There were lush larkspurs, Cow Parsnips or Love Roots or maybe both, a few Blue Columbines, and Indian Paintbrush, and Bluebells. The display probably gets better into August. From this meadow the trail resumes climbing steeply in forest toward the Lower Ice Lake basin. Looking back to the east, the Clear Lake 4WD road is visible switchback climbing and appearing to be amazingly high.

The Lower Ice Lake basin is the only segment of trail that is relatively flat. At the entrance end of the basin there is a rock outcrop that provides good seating and viewing of the lower lake.

It took me 1:45 hours to arrive at this comfortable viewing area after a climb of 1600 feet.
 

The remainder of the hike continues toward an oddly slanted waterfall with an eye catching peak called the Golden Horn looming above. The peaks to the south of Golden Horn are Fuller Peak and Vermillion Peak, and Pilot Knob is to the north.

                            

The trail toward the waterfall passes through waist high wildflowers and there is a creek crossing that will probably get your feet a little wet. I saw marmot feeding on the lush vegetation near the creek, the only wildlife that I noticed. I might have heard some Pikas, but didn’t see them. This last climb continues as steeply as before but the views back across the basin are spectacular.

Ice Lake is startling due to the vivid blue color, not to mention the ring of mountains surrounding it. Backpackers or those with extra energy have several other lakes to visit. A short distance past Ice Lake is the smaller and higher Fuller Lake. The trail to Island Lake is visible in the area around Ice Lake.

These numerous lakes are quite close to the popular Trout Lake and Hope Lake on the Dolores River side of the mountains. It took me 3:15 hours to arrive at Ice Lake. The downhill return took 2:00 hours and the total time was 5:30 hours. The mid July temperature at 10:00 am was about 60 F degrees and it felt about 10 degrees cooler at the top and was a little windy.

On the return hike it got noticeably warmer below the lower basin and was 70 degrees at the trail head at 3:45 PM. This was a on a day when the afternoon temperature in Durango was about 90. I drank 3 liters of water on this hike. The Ice Lake Trail is one of the most spectacular mountain trails in a spectacular region.