Destination: Bowen Lake
Location: Never Summer Wilderness
Distance: Around 20 miles
Elevation Gain: Around 2,000 feet
Map
This week I got Monday off, so given a long weekend I decided to head to the mountains for my first backpacking trip of the season.
This early in the year a lot of places in the high country are off limits due to snow, so I opted to head to the Never Summer Wilderness to Bowen Lake, a remote lake about five miles outside Rocky Mountain National Park.
Sunday afternoon, my wife and I loaded up the packs and headed out from the Baker/Bowen Trailhead just off U.S. 34 on the west side of RMNP. The trailhead is actually in the park.
We started hiking west until we hit the park’s border and entered the Never Summer Range. The trail cut up a ridge and headed south for about two miles before we ran into a register box.
We signed in and looked at the map on the box. While we had anticipated five miles to the lake, the map read 7.5 miles and we had already gone 2.5 miles. With the sun beating down on us we headed west up the valley towards the lake.
The trail started out very wide and gradual, a nice easy walk through the woods. The trail was clearly marked and lined by lodgepoles. Soon the trail dropped down next to a stream that we would follow up the valley.
After a couple hour we paused for lunch in what was once an old campsite. After the break the trail started to get steeper and more rocky. We climbed for a bit as mall waterfalls tricked down the hill to the north into the stream on our left. There was a huge grassy marshy area through here were I imagine moose love to hang out.
Eventually the trail hit a few steep switchbacks before hitting a fork in the trail. To the right was Blue Lake and straight ahead Bowen. We continued on towards the Bowen turnoff as the late afternoon sun lowered.
The trail goes through an open meadow with great views before dropping down to the turnoff for Bowen. The trail was clearly marked with a signpost and my GPS read 1 mile to the lake. It was about 6 p.m. and we thought that we were in perfect shape.
However, we were wrong. This is where things went bad. As we ventured down the trail towards the lake we started to climb in elevation and immediately ran into a bunch of down trees.
At first we were able to maneuver through the downed trees, but soon we started to hit patches of snow. Between the snow and fallen trees we lost the trail. With the GPS, I tried to aim towards the lake, but the snow and trees proved too much to penetrate. With the sun setting we turned back to try to find a place for camp.
We retraced our steps to the fork and headed back down the trail. Around 7:30 p.m. as the sun was setting we lost the trail again crossing a stream. With darkness descending on us I scrambled to orient myself in the forest of fallen trees.
While the map only showed one river, with the runoff there were about a dozen tributaries that made things confusing. Finally I was able to find the trail, after we both fell in a stream trying to cross it.
Fortunately there was an open meadow next to the trail that made for an ideal campsite. We got camp up and ate a quick meal of mac & cheese as the sun set in a pink blaze and a full moon came up.
I got a fantastic nights sleep next to the stream. We awoke sore after the prior days hike that devolved into about 10 miles. We had some bread and coffee while we broke down camp and filtered some water in the stream.
We jumped on the trail and made sure not to loose it. The hike back down took about four hours, and we were both relieved to get back to the car and get our packs and shoes off.
While it was a sketchy trip at times, it was fun and will give me good fodder for a trip later this summer.
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