It's almost November and CO is still holding onto the warm weather. Since we're a technically a few weeks away from the slopes opening, we'll continue to knock out the hikes on Ali's "to do" list. This weekend we decided to head to over to Breckenridge and do the Mohawk Lakes Trail.
According to AllTrails.com, this is a 8.2 out and back hike with 2,149 feet elevation gain. I'm a sucker for water so I was pretty excited when I looked at the map and saw at least 5 smaller lakes/ponds along with a few waterfalls.
We started the hike at the the very bottom which is the Spruce Creek Trail. If you don't want to do this portion, you can drive up a 4 wheel drive road to start at the Mohawk Lakes Trail. The Spruce Creek Trail is a gradual uphill hike through various pine trees and you pass some small ponds. It's a pretty nice easy hike to get you started on a cool morning. We didn't see any wildlife but during the Spring time it looks like a perfect location to see some deer/elk.
Once we got to the Mohawk Lakes Trail, we started to gain elevation quite a bit quicker than the Spruce Trail. The trail starts winding back and forth going up the mountain as you follow a stream on the right. There are quite a few ways up the path so don't be confused if you see a separate trails. As long as you go up and keep the water on your right, you'll be fine. One small trail deviation led to our first waterfall.
After the waterfall it was more uphill as we got to the Lower Mohawk Lake. While the lake isn't very big, it's a pretty view being able to see the mountains behind it. This is another place that Ali and I slightly deviated from the trail as we started roaming around the campsites here. If you want to stay on the trail, stick to the left of the creek that feeds the lake.
Next on the water list is Mohawk Lake. This was the coolest one in my opinion. As you are hiking up to it, you come eye level with the water and then have a nice view of the mountains behind it. You can scramble up some rocks on the left or the trail continues around to the right which is where the picture below was taken.
After we passed it, it got windy as were were almost at the top of this particular hike and there weren't very many trees. During the Spring I bet it's very pretty up here with wild flowers but for us it was fairly bare as far as vegetation goes. You pass one more smaller lake/pond before you get to the end of the trail. The last lake which I'm not even sure if it has a name or not looks similar to Mohawk but is a little bit smaller.
On our way back we took the 4x4 road instead of the Spruce Trail to mix it up a little bit and get a different perspective of the mountain. Overall, our GPS said we hiked around 9.47 miles (I think a little less) and had a 2,183 elevation gain. As I said before, I love water hikes so I really enjoyed being able to see a lot of different bodies of water plus some nice mountain views when you got to the top. It was a nice change of pace after Mt. Bierstadt the previous week where there were no trees or water. I'd like to do this one again during the Spring for wildlife and also to see the flowers.
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