This hike is close to Winter Park, CO but you don't take the normal Winter Park route over the pass. We went west of Golden and wound through some mountain roads and then went south of Nederland. Once you turn south, you are on a paved road for a little while longer but then the last 6ish miles is gravel. It's a little bumpy but not horrible. It took us a little over 1.5 hrs to get there.
There was a race going on the day we went so the parking lot was packed but luckily there is a ton of parking. I'd get there early just to get some peace of mind but you should always be able to park somewhere.
Distance
If you just go to Heart Lake it's about a 9 mile round trip. We ended up going up the pass and clocked in just shy of 10 after roaming around the lakes a little.
Elevation
You start out around 9,000 and ended up around 11,000 if you just go to Heart Lake. We ended up going up the pass which added about .5 miles both ways but ~800 more vert. At the end of the day, my Garmin said 2,861 total elevation gain.
Difficulty
For the majority of the hike, I would say this is a moderate difficulty. While it's a decent amount of vert, it's spread out quite a bit. The hardest part is right before you get to Heart Lake and Roger's Pass. These sections are not technical at all but are fairly steep.
The Hike
We started out hike around 8:11 am. As I mentioned above, there were a lot of people in the parking lot but we honestly didn't run into many people on the trail. It's a fairly popular fishing and camping site so I think a lot of people were either already fishing or still sleeping in when we started.
The entire hike until the last mile or so is in a wooded area that follows South Boulder Creek. There isn't much to see in this part of the trail even though it was nice to be by the water a lot and have some shade. After some recent fairly steep hikes, it was a nice change of pace to just be in the woods for a while.
The trail is a fairly steady uphill climb and there are quite a few rocks and roots that you have to be careful on as well as a few creek crossings but they are all fairly well maintained.
Once you get close to Rogers Pass Lake, it starts to open up quite a bit and you get some good views of the mountains around you, tons of streams, and some pretty wildflowers. There is also a pretty nice waterfall right before this section.
Even though the original hike we were going to was Heart Lake, Rogers Pass Lake is much prettier in my opinion. Below are a few pictures of it both from the lake itself and from Rogers Pass above it.
As I mentioned, since it was the Heart Lake trail, here is a picture of Ali and her heart pose.
I would recommend this hike to anyone. It has a great combination of trees, water, mountain views, and lakes. Minus it getting a little crowded around the top of the pass and around the lakes, I didn't have any complaints.
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