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.