On the way out on Route 70 in Colorado, the road passes through Glenwood Canyon where Hanging Lake can be found. To get there is a bit odd because the exit to the parking lot is only on the Eastbound roadway, but once you get off, you can only get back on in the westbound direction. So no matter which way you are passing by on the highway, you have to backtrack in the wrong direction. It appears that the highway started through the narrow canyon as only 2 lanes wide, and later they built 2 more lanes as an extension, but without enough room to be able to repeat all the entrance and exit ramps. The two sets of lanes are nearly on top of each other like a layer cake within the deep canyon walls.
From one direction, it says "hanging lake, exit 121" but that merely puts you on the highway in the opposite direction. Then you head backwards several miles till you get to exit 125.
There isn't much room in the canyon so they have layered the roads one on top of each other.
In addition to both lanes of the super-highway, the exit ramps, and the side roads, there is also a bike/walking path along the river.
Hanging lake trail itself starts out quickly as a rocky scramble. While at first I had wondered if they had even done much work to this trail at all, on the way back I realized how much of the scree and large boulders they moved to make a half-passable trail. Nonetheless, it was still a challenge to have two lanes of hikers pass in both directions and whenever someone was coming down, you had to step aside to let them by.
Nice view of the river below if you look back behind you along the trail.
At the beginning of the trail, I was worried because the stream bed we were following for the first several tenths of a mile up the hill was completely dry. I was afraid hanging lake was going to be a mucky swamp. Luckily the water started visibly flowing. There's so much scree in the stream bed that the water seeps into cracks and comes out a long distance later down the hill. Speaking of hills, I thought this was an easy "family hike", but it was a lot tougher than advertised. It took a few hours and it was almost 1500 feet of climbing straight up this canyon.
Along the way, we were treated to small waterfalls. So that was a bonus.
There's enough water going through this canyon that the builders decided to wrap this tree with logs and fill the box with rocks to prevent the roots from being washed out.
Every bridge was numbered. Not sure why.
Perhaps they have trouble using all their fingers or they are too tired on the climb up to remember where they left off counting bridges?
At this section of the stream, they built up the bank so the stream wouldn't keep washing away the trail.
Not far up the trail, we started seeing snow. At this point in the trail though, a huge snow pile collected in the canyon and everybody had to walk over it. While we thought it was crazy at first, by the end of the trip we got used to carrying our crampons all over Colorado. You must have to get used to snow-covered trails all year in this state.
Another view of the slip-n-slide.
The farther up we climbed, the more water there was and the more waterfalls we saw. The cascades got bigger and bigger.
By the last bridge, the snow had become fairly consistent, packed down, and icy. It covered part of this bridge. While it was pretty warm further down at the start of the canyon, at this point the canyon walls were high and kept much sun from melting this snow. It was cooler here.
We were able to maneuver the icy path mostly because of the dirt of prior hikers giving it a good coating for traction.
After the ice field, we had to get a last good climb in. This section had great views, but needed a fairly well built fence to keep you from falling off a good distance. The farther up the trail we went, the more work they had done to build the trail. Of course the families with young kids and robustly figured, sneaker wearing hikers panting for breath seemed to fade away, and only the most adventurous appeared to have made it to the lake.
A photo of yours truly with the view in the background...
Last bit of steep steps, well built with a sturdy hand rail.
Finally at the lake, beautiful and full of flowing water, you can see the expertly crafted and modern boardwalk they put up along the lake. Maybe this front country boardwalk at the end of the trail mislead me to believe this was a tame walk in the woods rather than the 1,500 climb up huge rocky scree and slipping over ice fields.
Fish, safe from anglers.
Tripods rule! And so do neutral density filters. Waterfalls are easier to photograph when it's dark and nearly raining out.
Love this wispy waterfall!
I didn't feel like keeping the tripod out for all the photos, so I only used it on a couple. Also, I was afraid the bounty of people who had still made it to the top were going to trip on it and send my expensive camera right into the lake.
Though I regret not letting a few of these be a little bit more wispy.
Upstream from the lake is another waterfall, just a short scramble away. That trail is barely a trail and the only reason you know it's there is a sign pointing up a rocky scramble, and the trail of people making their way up and down the scramble. But at the end of that short hop is this next waterfall. Unfortunately because of the trees, there's no straight shot of it without branches in the way, so no award winning photos on that one. But still a nice wispy blur with the neutral density filter.
On our way down the long 1,500-foot hike back down, it started to rain and had turned pretty cold. It was kind of funny how on the way up, there were people everywhere but by the time we headed back down, it was nearly a ghost town.
