From Denver it took me about 1.5 hrs. but that was at 4:45 am. If you get stuck behind some slow vehicles going into the mountains or you go later and hit tourist traffic in RNMP, this number can drastically go up.
The parking lot wasn't that big but if you go early in the morning, it shouldn't be a problem. When I came back to the trail head, cars were parked up and down the road so you should be able to park anytime as long as you aren't too late.
Distance
By the time it was all said and done, I was at 18.46 miles. This can vary quite a bit depending on the route you take up Mummy Mt. since there isn't a real trail.
Elevation
Total vert was around 5,100 with a final elevation of ~13,300.
Difficulty
If you just did the trail to Crystal and Lawn Lakes, it would be a fairly moderate hike. Going up Mummy turns it into a hard hike for multiple reasons.
- 16+ miles is a long day.
- The climb up Mummy isn't part of an established trail so you need some route finding skills and be ready to just grind uphill for a fairly long time.
- The route I took down from Mummy was not a very good one. It had a ton of loose rocks and made for a more technical descent than I had planned.
The Hike
To start out, RMNP is a beautiful place if you get there before all of the crazy tourists. I started around 6:30 am and I only saw one person on the trail as I was heading up to the lakes.
The first mile or so is a fairly steady uphill climb and then it levels out a little bit and you start getting some good views of Roaring River. It's a pretty peaceful/wooded hike until you get to the split where you go left to Crystal/Lawn or go right to start looping around Mummy. Below is a picture of Mummy from the trail.
I also saw a moose friend as I was walking.
For the route that I took, I turned right and followed the Black Canyon Trail which allows you to loop around Mummy and take a less vertical route up. I actually should have looped a little further but it still worked out for me. You can really shoot in at any point in time but I waited until I was right at the treeline until I shot left and up the mountain.
The picture below shows the route I took (red). The blue is where I wish I would have gone from an ease perspective. On the right side, looping further right would reduce how fast you gain elevation with only adding a little distance and on the left side that will prevent you from hitting a lot of the loose boulders and cliffing out.
The purple route is what I wanted to do but I just wasn't feeling it. It would allow you to hit two 13ers and the decline from Hagues to The Saddle (yes, it's actually called that and should be capitalized), is a lot better path.
Anyway, back to the hike. My trip up Mummy on the far right wasn't that bad from a technical perspective, it just required a little bushwhacking and endurance if heading uphill. Once you start getting up the mountain, you have some very pretty views of various lakes and the woods around them.
As you continue to climb up the mountain, you start to see Lawn Lake a little better.
Then at the very top, you can see Crystal Lake with some pretty sweet mountains behind it.
As I mentioned above, once I get to Mummy, instead of veering right and heading up Hagues, which would include a decent amount of decline + incline to get back up, I just shot down the valley and headed toward the lakes and the real trail. The further you go right, the better it looked. Here is a picture of the route I took down which was not fun.
Once you get back to the real trail, it's smooth sailing the rest of the way home. Even though it's about 6ish miles, the majority of it is downhill. You also get to swing by Lawn Lake and see a few streams which are really pretty.
The area was beautiful and I definitely plan on going back and knocking out Mummy Mania (all of the 13ers). Just make sure you get there very early to beat the crowds.
