Adventures in Hiking (& other stuff): Red Feather Lakes

The Granite Ridge Trail starts at the Molly Lake Trailhead off Manhattan Road near Red Feather Lakes Village. It follows the granite ridgeline that runs east/west from Manhattan Road to the Boy Scout Camp Road about eight miles away. There are several spur trails along Granite Ridge. The other primary access to Granite Ridge is from the Lady Moon Trailhead along Red Feather Lakes Road.

Trailhead

The goal for the day was to travel Granite Ridge to the end of the trail. I didn't make it that far. The weather was very nice, although a bit cool and breezy in the morning, to just breezy in the afternoon. As I reported in my Lady Moon journal entry, this is not the most beautiful stretch of trail. It follows an old road which follows the ridgeline and has few views.

Sunny Day

With all the warm weather and relatively low elevation I was hoping for a fairly dry trail. While a lot of snow had melted there was still plenty on the shaded north facing slopes. Once in a while, I encountered several knee-deep drifts that I tried to work around, but on a couple had to posthole through for several hundred yards.

I probably would have made it to the end, but I took a wrong turn and didn't realize my mistake for about a half mile and had to backtrack to the trail. I probably lost about forty five minutes. I think that would have been enough to finish. I did find a neat small pond where i ate lunch and turned back toward the truck.