Heavenly Lakes and the Heart of Darkness Part II

Thu September 30, 2010

After Inkwell Lake there was some more above treeline rock scrambling. Two of us headed over towards Doughnut Lake, which is in a separate drainage from the other until below Arrowhead Lake. We found a great spot which overlooked both Doughnut Lake and Arrowhead Lake. We could also see Love Lake, which is about 200 feet above Arrowhead.

Doughnut Lake

Arrowhead Lake (or is it Right Turn Arrow Lake)
Love Lake is just to the right and above the point of the arrow.

After using a few climbing moves to get down, we regrouped near the shore of Arrowhead Lake. We went along the right shore, which ended up being the harder side to go around. After Arrowhead Lake we began to enter what the trip organizer called the Heart of Darkness, the forested hidden bottom of the canyon. We were not sure what we would find in there. We still had a bit more downhill to go, but now we had to deal with downed trees. Between Arrowhead and the next lakes, Rock Lake and Little Rock Lake, there was some steep downhill terrain along the creek we had to cover.

Rock Lake with Little Rock Lake Just Above It

Once we got close to Rock Lake, the terrain leveled out a bit. We were approaching a meadow when all of sudden we encountered a pair of moose. I was able to take a few pics, but we did not want to stay near them long or circle around for a better angle. Getting charged by a bull moose, miles from any trails is not something we wanted.

A Bull Moose with his Girl

Moose

We found a social trail that went along the Rock Lakes to the campground - the only one in the park without an official trail to it. Soon after the campground, the trail disappeared and we were going across meadows with meandering streams. Then we reentered the thick forest for the final descent to the Big Thompson River at the bottom of the canyon. There were lots of downed trees we had to climb over or walk along on the way down.

Confluence of the Creek We Were Following Down and the Big Thompson River

After a break near the creek, we began the climb up to the Forest Canyon Overlook. We stayed to the right of a drainage up and amazingly were heading roughly straight towards the overlook. There were more trees to climb over and walk up on. The trees ended about 200 vertical feet from the end. On the way up we watched the sun set a few times, before it finally out raced us up the mountain.

The hike was 11 miles long and took about 11 hours. There was 2100 ft of on trail climbing over four miles, followed by a 2900 ft descent, then 1800 ft more climbing. We were all exhausted after this hike.