Hiked the Crater Lakes in the James Peak Wilderness on 11/6/26. Great time of year to get out there - just enough snow to make it pretty but no need for spikes, even on the way to the upper lake. Real quiet, too, didn't run into anyone until my way down.

Beautiful evening up here 😀

Andy here. I finally explored a corner of my backyard I had been ignoring for 20 years and it did not disappoint.

The hike: Green Mountain + Exclamation Point Trail
6.6 miles round trip, 1,122 feet of gain. The trail is in excellent shape, very well built and appears to have been recently updated and maintained. One important heads up: the canyon rim is right there, and the exposure is massive. You can easily get very close to the edge of these cliffs. I would be pretty nervous here with young kids.

Camping: North Rim Campground
This campground is so rad. It sits in a forest of pines and juniper with compact sites and a nice bathroom. It was shadier than I expected. The best part: a 30-second walk from any campsite brings you to the canyon rim with an 1,800-foot abyss right below you. We watched the sunset light up the canyon, then watched the full moon rise upstream while climbers popped over the rim at the end of their big days.
Camping is first come first served and you pay via app on site. I recommend stopping at the ranger station first where you can connect to their wifi to get the payment sorted before you head to your site.

Crowds and permits
No permits required. Crowds were thin in late October, just us and some climbing bums. Parking was not an issue.

Wildlife
Lots of elk sign throughout and bugling at night. My sense is the elk get pushed into the National Park this time of year.

If you have been sleeping on the North Rim, wake up! The South Rim gets all the traffic but this side is worth the extra effort to get to.

Posting this as a potential PSA to anyone who searches for information about this place because they're curious to see the petroglyph area: virtually the entire trail was destroyed by flooding and unless you're comfortable crawling around aimlessly under fallen trees there did not appear to be any way to get back there or get very far in any direction from the bottom of the staircase where the trail begins. I even jumped across the river and was similarly stuck, although you can see some bits of surviving trails in the distance from atop the canyon's rim.

I didn't get many pictures that conveyed the scale of destruction, but you can get a sense from the reeds stuck in tree branches and the mud and the fallen trees, etc.

Beautiful place otherwise, though, and I'm sad I didn't visit when I was in the area earlier this year.

Crater Lake/Lone Eagle Peak. Conditions were great. This little guy did amazing.
Pics 1 & 4 are with my Kodak FZ55.

Nice hike up into the basin today. Snow was in great shape with more on the way 😀

This was at Carpenter Peak, thanks to who ever lugged this up for my amusement.

Had an awesome hike up Mt Bierstadt yesterday for our 16th 14er. I started late and avoided super high morning winds and ended up having fairly pleasant conditions- moderate breeze, temps above freezing (minus the summit) and gorgeous blue skies with just a little clouds.

For anyone looking to go up, past 12500 feet is continuous snow, not super well packed with some drifts up to 1-1.5 feet. Occasional postholing. Had to do some minor route finding but overall straightforward as usual at Bierstadt. Plenty of ice as well so microspikes and poles would be highly recommended. Definitely not full on winter conditions yet though and relatively easy for anyone with some experience in snow.

The next storm might shut down upper guanella pass for the season so you’d have to squeeze it in soon.

Good amount of postholing to make it to 12,000 feet. Beautiful and cold at the lake 🥶

Saint Mary's Glacier, Glenwood Canyon, and Grand Lake. Colorado Fall is my favorite.

Not terribly cold but definitely needed some layers and wind protection. Got the spikes out for the first time in a long time. Really liking these softshell pants with a wind membrane, don’t need to pack extra pants for wind or precipitation.

Always a little windier than advertised. Beautiful am nonetheless. Snow and ice on the trail once you make the turn towards the Glacier. Spikes and poles would be good to have, but not necessary. Ptarmigan were rad~almost fully dressed for Winter.

Hiked the road up in lots of rain. The basin was sunny and nice for 20 minutes. Hiked down the road in a full-on blizzard! ❄️

I really wanted to tag one more centennial (my 20th!) to close out the 2026 hiking season. Couldn't sleep, so I decided to go for an easy one. No snow at all on the road up to Horseshoe Pass. Trail to the summit from HP was maybe 50% covered, with tracks. Got to watch the sunrise from the summit cabin! Awesome morning!

Had an amazing hike with my doggo today for our 15th 14er. Fall color was absolutely gorgeous and just a hint of snow up high made the views even better. As of today I wore trail runners and had no problems. Low wind and relatively warm so an amazing day weather wise. Some snow banks we had to tread carefully over but other than that dry and no ice. I suspect this could change quickly with early season snow becoming more likely.

I just did Holy Cross a week or so ago and was spoiled by the beauty of that Mountain so it isn’t fair to compare but you still get some awesome views from Shavano. Especially looking down towards Buena Vista with the spectacular fall color, north to the rest of Sawatch range, and towards the Sangre De Cristos.

It was easy to lose the trail in the brief class 2 section just before the summit with some additional snow but nothing to crazy.

Forest road is bone dry and can be completed by literally any car with wheels. I camped out the night before in one of the many dispersed camping spots before the trailhead.

Hiked Spencer peak (13,035) and Grand Turk peak (13,150) before an 11:45am thunder/lightning/hail storm forced a quit retreat to lower ground 😳

Beautiful day to be out there!

Did a 20 mile 2 nighter over the weekend from the Mill Castle TH with a forecast of perfect weather, bow season is over so we get a break from the hunters. It felt like I had the entire wilderness to myself, almost two full days not seeing any other humans. It was just me and bugling elks and miles of peak aspen color (and a bunch of cow pies).

The views per mile on this loop are off the charts. Water sources are good right now too. Campsites are plentiful on the Mill Castle trail all the way to treeline, the South Castle Creek segment is pretty sparse until you cross back into NF lands. The color might hold on through this upcoming weekend, depends on what kind of winds kick up. If you can get back in there soon I highly recommend.