Rushing Rivers and Blue Lakes
The Upper, Middle, and Lower Blue Lakes trail is 8.7 miles, 2,509 feet elevation, and is located outside of Telluride, Colorado. It is part of the Mount Sneffels Wilderness Area. From Ridgeway, take Route 62 to Route 7. This road is a long dirt road and can be narrow at times. There’s plenty of parking at the trailhead and although quite popular, wasn’t too busy overall. Much of this trail is covered with a steady uphill climb. It follows along East Fork Dallas Creek which we had to cross a couple of times.
We hiked this trail in mid-June so the water was a bit high. Luckily, we had our water shoes for the crossings. There’s a nice meadow area shortly after the first river crossing. Other than that the trail is uneventful until you reach the lower lake.
This lake has a beautiful blue glacier color and still had some ice in it. Several trails ran around it with more water crossings and few trees. It was windy and cool here so make sure to pack a jacket.
We spent some time up here exploring before trying to find our way to Middle Lake. Some people crossed through a marshy area and around to meet up with the main trail. We chose to backtrack a bit to the more direct path. By doing this it forced us to have to cross the river again which was much higher, faster, and colder. I found a spot that looked passable and forged my way across. Midway through, I almost fell in from the force of the water but caught myself and made it across!
Siobhan wasn’t able to find a good spot to cross so she decided to stay back while I continued on a little further to get some more pictures of the lake. The trail became much more difficult after the crossing. I also decided to pick up my speed so that Siobhan wouldn’t have to wait too long. It was much steeper and more difficult to navigate, losing the trail at times due to debris and snow. Though it was trickier to navigate, I was able to scale up some rocks and find the main trail. Then came another river crossing. I left my water shoes behind to dry at the last crossing so had to decided if I wanted to get my boots wet this far out. I decided to cross.
It’s a good thing I did as right after this crossing the trail opened up for a nice viewpoint overlooking the lake below. There’s a steep switchback to climb then you’ll reach the main viewpoint of the mountains and lake below. This is the main view that you see from pictures of the hike and it was well worth trekking though the terrain and crossings to get it.
Since this took way longer to get too that I was planning, I decided to head back as Siobhan was likely waiting by the river wondering if I was OK. Though shortly after this point you’ll reach the middle then upper lakes. The path down wasn’t as bad as up though a little steep with some rock scrambles and snow crossings.
This was a fun hike and the added challenges made it better in my opinion. We’d recommend waiting until July to hike this one to avoid the high water and snowy sections. But, if you like to hike to alpine lakes then this one will be a treat for you!
