Chapter 15
Dayhike to Upper and Middle Forest Lakes

For our last day of hiking, Duncan had selected a hike down in the James Peak Wilderness Area, which is a little south of the Indian Peaks Wilderness. It was a nice hike up to the Lower and Middle Forest Lakes. The trailhead was at the eastern end of the Moffat Railroad Tunnel. From there we hiked around the back of the tunnel entrance and hiked up into the hills.

Again, the weather was not real cooperative. Low clouds and mist obscured our view of the surrounding hills. When we got to Middle Forest Lake we thought we'd have a nice lunch along the shore. We started to get out our lunches when the heavens opened, it rained, sleeted, hailed, and snow showered. Instead of getting out our lunches we got out our rain gear. We decided to head back down to Lower Forest Lake. By the time we got there, the weather had improved a bit and the showers stopped. We were able to eat our lunches under some pine trees by the shoreline.

After that we decided to part company. Nora and Duncan decided to head out to another lake, and Diane and Dave decided to just hike back out to the car. We still had to drive into Denver and find our hotel near the airport. Tomorrow was our flight home.

Thus ends our 2006 vacation in Colorado!

The entrance to Moffat railroad tunnel, built around 1927. It's a 6 mile shortcut under the mountains for the railroad. Our hike started here and wound its way around the back of the entrance and then up into the hills.

This is Lower Forest Lake. The clouds and mist were already hanging low over the surrounding hills.

Here we are approaching Middle Forest Lake. We were gonna have lunch here but the weather suddenly turned bad. We put on our rain gear and decided to head back down to Lower Forest Lake where we had our lunch.