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I am in Leadville, Colorado for the 4th of July weekend with my wife and oldest son, Brady. We are here to hike up Mt. Massive tomorrow but we wanted to get some hiking in today as we are only here for a couple of days. We found a hike to Hagerman Tunnel, detailed in the excellent book, 100 Classic Hikes in Colorado. It is absolutely beautiful and I highly recommend it.
It is a pretty easy hike that will take you about 3 hours but it is the perfect “break-in” hike to start coping with the altitude (we just flew in from Chicago this morning) or if you are out of shape. It is about a 20-30 minute drive from Leadville.
We actually didn’t start from designated start area and instead started at the Busk-Ivanhoe Tunnel (by accident), which made things pretty fun and interesting. This is a picture of Amy and Brady once we finally made our way onto the actual trail.
One of the cool things about this hike was Douglass City, an old mining town (with some remains intact) from the late 1800’s, complete with a dance hall, post office and numerous saloons. Below, is a picture of Opal Lake, just past Douglass City.
This is Brady posing in front of Opal Lake. Hagerman Tunnel is just a bit further.
We made it! This is Hagerman Tunnel partially covered by snow. We decided not to walk down towards it, as I was unsure how deep or sturdy the snow was.
Another picture, just above Hagerman Tunnel. Time to start heading back. There was still quite a bit of snow on this hike for July at about 11,000 feet.
A friendly marmot who was just as curious as we were. We got pretty close and he didn’t back away.
Overall, I highly recommend this hike, but be sure to park at the designated parking area as we added quite a bit of (boring) hiking on to the end by parking at the Busk-Ivanhoe lot. We ended up walking an extra mile and a half we weren’t planning on and it was getting pretty dark. Onwards and upwards, Mt. Massive is tomorrow.
