Guanella Pass - Silver Dollar Lake

7.15.2012 Silver Dollar Lake Trail

Direction to Trailhead from Metro Denver: I70 west exit Georgetown. Turn right behind the visitor center then left to drive through the main street of Georgetown. When it gets to the end, turn left to enter Guanella Pass. Drive for a couple miles with a few twisty turns.  There is a small parking area located south of Guanella Pass Campground and north of the Guanella Pass. You can park here or keep drive for another 0.6 mile of dirt road to get to the trailhead. The parking lot by the trailhead has a pretty good size. No facilities here. Details can be found in ProTrails.

Parking lot by the Trailhead

Naylor Lake

Elephant Head

We started the hike at around 11:00am.  We saw the wildflowers right after got on the trail. After hiking for 10-15 minutes, Naylor Lake appeared on the right. This lake is in private property but you can see the whole lake view from the trail. Somebody was sailing a boat on the lake - very nice view. After passing the lake, we also got to the point of  passing the treeline.  You better go to restroom now because it is difficult to find a good bushy spot above the treeline. It is about 1 mile or so to get to Silver Dollar Lake. Some parts in the trail are steep and narrow but overall, it is a family/dog friendly trail. Many wildflowers around the trail, which make the hike very scenic and enjoyable.  The lake is not big and you can still see the snow on the mountain behind it. The water is cold, clear and peaceful.  Some people were fishing there. Not sure whether they got any fish. It gets pretty windy by the lake so a wind jacket will be helpful.

Paint Brush

Silver Dollar Lake

After a snack break by the lake, we decided to climb up to mountain top on the right to look over the Murray Lake. It is very steep but the wildflowers bloom even better here. When we just got to the top, a thunderstorm followed us. To be safe, we turned around right away. I almost ran because my rain gear wasn’t good enough. No wonder people want to start the hike as early as possible because thunderstorm usually comes after noon and it could be very dangerous if you were hiking above the treeline.  Good that the rain stopped when we got back to Silver Dollar Lake. On the way back, we saw a few pikas. The most interesting scene we saw was a marmot family. The mother stood on the top of the rocks and scouted for her family. Too bad my camera couldn’t zoom in close enough to get a good picture. But we all agreed that was the highlight of today’s hike.

The trail is marked 1.65 miles one way on the web. Plus the hike we did to get to the mountain top, the total length we did was about 4.3 miles. The wildflowers we saw today include Elephanthead, paintbrush, blue columbine, mountain thistle, alpine sunflower, oxeye daisy, marsh marigold, alpine forget-me-not and blue bell and many other unknown flowers.

Wildflowers on the way to Murray Lake

Naylor Lake & Silver Dollar Lake

Murray Lake

On the way back to Denver, we were stuck in the traffic jam as expected. We took 40 from Georgetown to Idaho Springs then got back to I70. It probably saved us 10-15 minutes. We spent about equal time on hiking and on driving. We all hope the traffic on I-70 can be improved soon!