Abandoned Road

A 4.0-mile tundra hike on the west end of Trail Ridge follows the old route used by auto traffic between 1918 and 1932, which was abandoned when Trail Ridge Road opened between Milner and Fall River Passes. The ideal way to walk this section is to park one car near the Continental Divide sign at the southwestern end of Poudre Lake (Milner Pass) and hike down to it from Fall River Pass. However, the return to Fall River Pass from midway down at Forest Canyon Pass is not terribly steep.

Park at the large parking lot serving the Fall River Pass Store and Alpine Visitor Center. Across Trail Ridge Road, bear left to locate traces of the old road, still scantily revegetated after well over half a century. Gravel quarries and borrow pits along the abandoned, unpaved road look as though the road machinery left only yesterday. Here is one of the best places in the national park to see moss campion and other cushion plants massing their forces to begin the centuries-long process of tundra repair. (See page 150 for more about moss campion.)

About 2.5 miles from Fall River Pass, the old road levels in Forest Canyon Pass. Looking southeast down Forest Canyon of the Big Thompson River conveys the impression that Estes Cone sits at the end of the canyon. Actually that small peak is situated several valleys beyond the mouth of Forest Canyon, just north of Longs Peak. From Estes Cone it appears that Specimen Mountain sits at the northwestern end of the canyon, which, as you can see from this pass, is equally untrue.

Although Forest Canyon is not quite as long as it appears, 15,000 years ago it did contain the longest glacier—13 miles—on the east side of the park. The canyon’s U shape, which is quite noticeable from Forest Canyon Pass, is typical of valleys carved by ice 1,000 to 1,500 feet thick. Today the steep walls of this trackless canyon help make it the national park’s most difficult wilderness to penetrate (see Gorge Lakes, page 162).

A short and very gentle uphill walk from Forest Canyon Pass takes you to trees: genuine, erect, undistorted Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir. You have left the tundra behind. Your trail now traverses the subalpine zone, where wind is a friend, for it piles up precious water in reservoirs of snow stolen from the alpine zone. The old road is a wide aisle enclosed by spruce and fir. Smaller spruce and fir are making a good beginning toward reforesting the road itself.

The path is built up over bogs in openings that explode with the colors of lush subalpine flowers after the snow melts. Where it passes through forest, the old road becomes more and more overgrown by trees the lower you go. In a few spots it and the invading trees are totally obliterated by what appear to be annual avalanche runs.

Yet the trail remains clear as it follows the route of the old automobile road. Poudre Lake and Trail Ridge Road appear through the trees below. The trail continues on, eventually leaving the old highway, passing a trail south to Mount Ida, and descending in easy switchbacks to the parking lot at the south end of Poudre Lake.