Snowdrift Lake is an remote alpine lake on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park. There is no maintained trail to this lake. To reach Snowdrift Lake will require bushwhacking or ascending and descending mountain ridges.
Some common routes to reach this tarn are from North Inlet Trailhead (about 18 miles round-trip) and Bear Lake Trailhead (about 16 miles round-trip). I haven’t personally reached this lake via Bear Lake but would guess this is the easier approach. Although both routes are going to require a good amount of bushwhacking and route-finding, and should only be attempted by experienced, well conditioned hikers.
We hiked to Snowdrift Lake as part of a two day backpacking trip at the North Inlet Junction. From the campsite it was about a mile to Ptarmigan Creek, which we followed up to Bench Lake. Followed the creek up to Ptarmigan lake and then crossed over the upper part of the valley to reach Snowdrift Lake.
Rocky Mountain National Park is huge. There is so much beauty here that is away from crowds and this is one of those places.
