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Dave Spates

Dave Spates

Hiking. Adventure. Photography.

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You are here: Home / Lakes of Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado / Frozen Lake (11,578′)

Frozen Lake (11,578′)

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To reach Frozen Lake, hike to Black Lake, follow the path to the east of Black Lakes shore up a steady unmaintained trail. Steady elevation gain will lead you to the upper Glacier Gorge area. From here the path is pretty easy to follow if you know what direction Frozen Lake is. You want to keep heading south towards the Spearhead.

Frozen Lake sits on the southwest shelf of the Spearhead. Follow cairns with caution out here. We started on the west side of the stream and crossed over to the east side, where a visible path through overgrown vegetation comes into sight. Once through the bush two strategically placed cairns lead the way.

Climb up the granite shelf, hands may be needed and the rock can get slippery when wet, so use caution. Head towards the Spearhead and look for 3 car-sized boulders. Keep heading west from here until the elusive, less visited Frozen Lake comes into view.

Frozen Lake is a hard to find hidden high elevation alpine lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. It's only thawed one or two months of the year.
Frozen Lake is a hard to find hidden high elevation alpine lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s only thawed one or two months of the year.

We descended 30ft down to the northwest mouth of the lake for some spectacular views of the Spearhead and Chiefs Head Peak.

Rarely thawed out, Frozen Lake, 11,578', and Chiefs Head Peak (13,579') make up this seldom visited location
Rarely thawed out, Frozen Lake, 11,578′, and Chiefs Head Peak (13,579′) make up this seldom visited location

If your into birding and don’t mind hiking far distances we saw several White-tailed Ptarmigan here. They were not spooked by us at all and we actually had to walk around them taking another path up back to the shelf.

 Route we Took to Reach Frozen Lake

We hiked Frozen Lake along with the other Lakes located in the upper Glacier Gorge, Green Lake and Blue Lake. Here’s the route we took that got us to these less visited lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park.

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Lakes of Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado

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