One of my favorite things about summer is long hikes to beautiful lakes. This trail did not disappoint. The entire trail was gorgeous from start to finish and in true Colorado form, changed multiple times. It had everything, elevation gain, views, wildflowers, waterfalls, meadows, and a stunning crystal clear lake at the end. Its a long hike, my Garmin clocked us at about 13.5 miles, but completely worth it.
I headed out with my friend, Ariel, and her dog, Kimber. And of course my two puppers, Shep and Mushu, came along. It wouldn’t be an adventure without dogs! There are very few people in my life that will agree to wake up at 330am to go on a hike. Ariel is one of them; and its awesome.
This hike begins in Westcliffe and is off of Rainbow Trail and shares a trail head with Horn Creek. Its an extremely well marked and easy to follow trail with clear signs at every junction. The beginning of the trail is slightly rocky, but not anything unbearable. There are some great views of the valley as you head up the mountain. The beginning is shady in the morning, but gets a lot of sun in the afternoon, making the way back down pretty warm.
After about 3.5 miles the trail splits, there is a bridge to the left and a smaller trail to the right. There is a sign with the trail names and distances to the end. The Macey lakes trail branches off to the right (not over the bridge). While the elevation gain on the way up is fairly constant, its never so steep that you feel like your’e dying. It was actually super mild! Very relaxing and enjoyable.
The meadows on the way up were totally unexpected. We were just walking along through forest and suddenly stumbled out into a meadow full of flowers with towering mountains on each side. Definitely a cool trail feature.
When we arrived at the lake it was about 10:30am (we started around 7:15am). It totally lived up to our expectations. It was huge and completely crystal clear. You could even see all the fish swimming around. We stayed up there for about a half hour and decided to head down as afternoon rain is pretty frequent.
I think one of the only reasons this trail is labeled as “hard” is due to the length. It was overall a great day. And we had 3 very tired puppies and 2 very tired girls at the end.
