This past summer, I had a buddy who was extremely eager to backpack Dora Lake in the Gore Range of the Eagles Nest Wilderness in Colorado. Dora Lake is situated on top of a rare (for Colorado…) high alpine plateau and nestled under the knife-edge ridges of the Gore Range, Mount Powell, and Eagles Nest. To say that it’s off the beaten path would be an understatement as there is no trail up the plateau. We hiked approximately 5.2 miles and 2,800 feet of gain to Cataract Lake before bushwacking our way straight up another very steep 1,500 vertical feet along a feint climbers trail didn’t seem to actually exist most of the time. Avoiding a glacier, we then overshot the lake and ended up at the base of Eagles Nest, tacking on an additional few miles and another extra couple hundred feet.
Fortunately, knowing what we were getting into, we had prepared ourselves for the absolute worst so we got to camp at Dora Lake more energized than expected. But then going down the next day was much, much worse than we were prepared for… I nearly collapsed into my car.
Totally worth it.
I hiked up to Dora lake in 1998. We camped at Dora and then walked north to eagles nest peak to scout for Rocky Mtn goats.
The hike to Dora Lake is definitely not for the inexperienced hiker, in fact we passed some hikers on our way up to Dora lake who had day packs on. They could not believe we were going to Dora lake hauling full Kelty Tioga ll packs. The first day taking of from the lower cataract lake trail to the Gore Mountain Trail we headed north; when we worked our way to just south of upper cataract lake at which point we turned up the mountain and bush wacked our way up towards Dora lake. The first night we ended up sleeping just below tree line as we had a violent storm come in on us. We found a semi level spot to throw up our tents in the trees and rode the storm out that night.
One thing you have to keep in mind about Eagles nest wilderness area is storms can come on pretty fast so be prepared.
The next day we got up to a beautiful sunrise. I warmed up oat meal for breakfast and then we packed are stuff up and started climbing up the mountain above tree line.
One of the areas we passed by, was the head waters for black lake. It started out with a nice water fall above tree line which is quite rare. We had to circumvent the Glacier that was feeding the head waters to black lake and it was treacherous because of having to side hill on Glacier and not slip into water; but I have to tell you the view from the Glacier down the mountain to black lake, was out of this world
We finaly got up on top of the mountain were Dora lake was at about mid afternoon.
We set up camp and immediately took off for eagles nest peak which was to the north of us.
Now something I want you to remember is Dora lake sits on top of a Grassy flat top of the mountain and you will see why I tell you this now later.
Getting back to going to Eagles nest Peak as we get up there we get to an overlook of Upper Cataract Lake. It was a 2000′ sheer drop off to the lake and you could see all of the valley below you including Mahn Lake and Green Mountain Resevoir, Williams Peak and so forth.
We finaly get to the southern edge of Eagles nest and we are looking across the ridge top to the other side were all the cliffs are with our binoculars; looking for goats. We did see a couple. We could not stay long as we needed to get back to camp at Dora lake before Dark.
As we were getting back to camp we came over a small ridge on the north side of Dora Lake where you can see it from above and what do we see around our camp to our surprise none other than a bunch of goats.
They feed on those Grassy hills around Lake Dora at night.
That was quite a treat; as we moved down closer to camp we made sure that they could see us coming down, so they would not get nervous. You see
Goats get real nervous with humans when they loose sight of you and they will run back to cliffs for safety, but if you stay in view they will not run: these just meaandered over to the west edge and we watched them till it got dark.
That night we had another powerful storm moved through but I did not mind. I like the sound of thunder and rain on my tent.
We got up the next morning and it was still storming in the valley’s below us but clear as a bell where we were camped. I went fishing first thing in the morning on Dora lake using my trusty wet renegade fly combo. I landed a couple of nice native trout and had them for breakfast.
We scoped out for a few hours the other areas around Dora and then we headed back down the mountain. We had to be back to work Monday morning at the mine we all worked at.
We took a little different route down then we did coming up, which turned out to be bad descision; as we ended up in a rock garden when we came out of the tree line.
We chose that route as the Topo map we were using said it was not quite as steep but of course it did not show the rock garden; but that’s the chance you take when bush wacking in the mountains.
This particular trip should not be taken unless you are experience with Topo maps and compass and our physicaly able too.
If you have the ability to do this hike you will remember it for a life time as I have. I am now 65 years old. I took this trip when I was 38; but I was very experienced hiker as I grew up in this area and hiked all my life.
I hope this story inspire others who enjoy hiking and have the knowledge and youth to do it.