Indian Peaks Wilderness

Lost Lake Trail at the Hessie Trailhead (July 2022)

Our kids were 3, 8 & 10. (We carried our 3 year old a lot.)

We had to park about half a mile away when we got there at 8:20 am. So we wound up hiking close to 6 miles round trip. It was a challenging hike that was mostly straight uphill the whole way to the top.

We got to see the Highland Mary Falls which was amazing. The cascades were beautiful and there was a second waterfall before we got to Lost Lake. The lake was very pretty too. 

Mitchel Lake Trail to Blue Lake (Aug 2012) 

We made it all the way up to Blue Lake. It was about 2.5 miles to Blue Lake. It was freezing cold up there, no snow though. It was a difficult hike. 

Monarch Lake Trail (Aug 2017)

Our kids were 5 & 3 at the time. We planned to hike along Cascade Creek, see the falls and keep going to Crater Lake. We were going to camp nearby. Cascade Creek was really pretty. I wish we had made it to the falls. They are supposed to be amazing. Unfortunately however; we stopped to fill up our water when we got to a part of the creek that was easy to get to, about 3 miles in, and realized we didn't have our water filter. We had less than half the water left that we started with. We had no choice but to turn around. We found the filter in the trunk. It must have fallen out when we got the packs out of the trunk. We would go back. The part that we did on this trail was gorgeous.

Brainerd Lake to Red Deer Lake via the Buchanan Pawnee Loop trail (July 2010)

My husband and I did this hike before we had children. We started at Brainerd Lake & followed the Buchanan Pawnee Loop Trail north until we came to the fork to go to Red Deer Lake. We climbed through snow, over streams that thankfully had logs laid across when we were there (from other reviews I’ve read these can be difficult to cross at times), past mountain lakes and ponds and through the pretty forest. There were some areas with beautiful wild flowers. We went about 7 miles in, to Red Deer Lake. We camped there that night. It was freezing that night. On the hike though I was wearing short sleeves. My husband enjoyed fishing at the lake. He caught quite a few fish. We took the same route back out the next morning.