September is probably the best month for hiking in Colorado because it's usually quite sunny, the air is crisp and clear, and the colors are the most intense with the aspens, willows, and grasses changing colors. Naturally, I try to get into the mountains for a while or at least a few daytrips for hiking around that time of year every year when I’m in Colorado. Within the last few years I heard about the hike to Mohawk Lakes as being one of the nicest and most popular hikes in the state, and although it’s rated as strenuous, that’s relative. Compared to climbing a fourteener or a somewhat shorter peak, it’s really not all that hard. My friends Don and Ann Marie raved about the hike as well to me about a year earlier when I saw them in Breckenridge. They had just done the Mohawk Lakes hike while I did one the same day in the Gore Range. I talked my friend Jerad and friends Timby (Tim and Toby) into joining me for a Saturday hike which they were all eager to do for the fine foliage season….and also because it was Oktoberfest in Breckenridge so there’d be good beer at the end of the day of hiking.

The Mohawk Lakes hike begins at the Spruce Creek trailhead on a forest service road which branches off Route 9 about 6 or 7 miles south of Breckenridge on the way to Hoosier Pass . Depending on how high clearance your car is determines how far up the road you can drive and how long the total walk is. It was not a problem for my Jeep. The trail parallels the upper part of the road along Spruce Creek and through willow thickets which thrive in soggy soil to Lowe Mohawk Lake. The trail then climbs quite steeply past two waterfalls and some of the remains of the regions mining heyday – photogenic ruins of shacks and old mining equipment. Once you’ve climbed about a thousand vertical feet or so you get to Middle Mohawk Lake which is very close to timberline. Tim and Toby decided to remain around the lake while Jerad and I took an adventurous but very fun route scrambling up rocks the remaining 400 vertical feet up to Upper Mohawk Lake. That may sound a little more treacherous than it actually was. It was just fun to climb on rocks and sometimes have use your hands to hoist yourself up rather than continue walking on a trail.

Upper Mohawk Lake is located in a basin at little under 12,000 feet surrounded by some of the impressive peaks of the Ten Mile Range which runs north-south from Frisco to the Hoosier Pass area and contains one fourteener, Quandary Peak . Quandary isn’t in view from the lake, but Pacific Peak which is about 13,900 feet, nearly a fourteener, towers over it to the south. The brilliant sunshine and changing colors on the alpine tundra above timberline made it absolutely spectacular. We decided to take the trail back down to the middle lake. Rock climbing is actually a lot easier going up than going down. Overall our hike was about seven miles round trip and involved an ascent of about 1,600 feet, a moderate hike for Colorado in my opinion.

When we got back to Breckenridge our reward was beer at Oktoberfest. I have to admit, though, that the Saturday of Oktoberfest in Breckenridge has become so crowded that it’s not much fun anymore. I mean, what the fun of having to wait in line for half an hour just to get a beer or a bratwurst? Anyway, we came, we saw, we had a beer, and we continued on home. Oktoberfest was a little disappointing, but it didn’t detract from the spectacular fall day in the mountains.