Shelf Lake Trail is a surprising gem near Guanella Pass. The first couple miles of the trail are not super colorful and in the trees, but as soon as you get out into the alpine views, the wildflowers just pop! Definitely go during wildflower season (July especially)! But I’m getting ahead of myself…
We began this little trek by heading out on a Friday and car camping near the Shelf Lake Trailhead. Clouds were moving in quick so we made sure we had our rain gear as well. Car camping can be really awesome and can provide the camp experience but with a few more luxury items! We brought a cooler full of beer and our camp chairs and luckily had the hatchback door of Dan’s Nissan Xterra to sit under for rain cover.
The camping area near the trailhead is supposed to be dispersed camping, but in designated camp sites only. There are quite a few camp sites along the road (Geneva City Rd), which is definitely a four-wheel drive road. Some parts could be considered mild jeep road. I’m glad we took Dan’s XTerra, though we did see some sedans out there…crazy.
It took us a while to find a camp site because the area was packed with people. We ended up snagging a small flat spot close to another couple who had the main part of a designated campsite. But we were far enough from them it felt like a different, adjacent campsite. We paid them back with beer :)
We set up our tent just in time for some more rain and then sequestered ourselves under the XTerra hatchback door and made some dinner.
This part of the road doesn’t look too bad
But it gets worse further up.
Our quaint little spot just off the road.
The next morning the rain clouds had cleared a bit but it was still cloudy. That kept things very cool for the hike up to shelf lake, thankfully.
I didn’t take too many pictures until we cleared the trees because there wasn’t a ton to look at. However, once we cleared the trees, the wildflowers were just everywhere. The lake turned out to be harder to spot, and judging by its name, it certainly sat on a shelf that was nestled farther into the mountain basins than I expected. We were also starting to see clouds pregnant with rain roll in over the mountains so we were hoping to get to see the lake before a downpour.
This mountain basin was definitely a site to behold. The trail does not seem to meander through it as much as McCullough Gulch, for instance, but I’m sure if we had more time and weren’t facing an imminent storm, we could have explored a bit more.
Finally we got to the lake and were able to refuel with some food and water and relax a little before it started raining. We saw some hikers up on the ridge to Decatur Mountain. That would be a fun hike I’m sure, but not in a thunderstorm. Hopefully they made it to some shelter because we actually got some sleet coming down from the lake and heard plenty of thunder!
I was able to take some quick snapshots of this amazing garden of columbines before it really started letting loose. Luckily we didn’t have too far to go before hitting the tree line for some mediocre shelter. Needless to say, once it started raining, I didn’t take too many more pictures! This was an amazing hike though and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
