Tuesday dawned bright and sunny but with the recent snow at higher elevations it seemed best to pick a lower altitude hike for the day. The trail to Hanging Lake is said to be Colorado's most popular hike, one so busy on summer weekends that the lot fills up early and cars have to be turned away. I guess that’s true for a number of reasons. First, located it Glenwood Canyon between Eagle and Glenwood Springs, it’s just off I-70 so no long drive up rough roads necessary. The hike also involves a specific destination and (although quite steep) is not very long.

While on most backcountry hikes in Colorado you mostly see very fit people and their dogs, the trail to Hanging Lake is filled with chubbies and oldsters from the lowlands who rarely do much walking other than the aisles at Walmart, huffing and puffing their way up with lots of rests on the benches . A quite obese friend of mine seemed quite proud he had made it all the way up earlier in the summer and told me it was the hardest thing he ever did.

That makes it sound far worse than the reality. The trail leaves the parking area and follows the Colorado River a short distance in the canyon before climbing steeply up a side canyon north of the river. The trail climbs over 1,000 feet in elevation in a little over a mile, which for me means somewhat over an hour with short stops for photos. The starting point is around 6,500 feet, so this is a far cry from fourteener hikes, most of which involve around a 4,000 foot elevation gain to just over 14,000 feet. Much of the trail is in the shade of the canyon walls most of the day or that of the trees which line the stream’s course.

Hanging Lake itself is small but worth the trip. The lake is fed by a tumbling waterfall and had a deep blue color on the sunny day of our hike. The walk up was easier than I expected and the walk back down was a breeze. I’m apparently still quite fit and sprightly after my weeks at high elevations in the Andes over the summer.