Ascent Route: North Ridge from Thunder Lake and Boulder-Grand Pass

Descent Route: East Slopes via Isolation Lake and Bluebird Lake

Having devoted much of my time in the mountains this summer to climbing aesthetically pleasing and remote 13ers by intriguing routes, this ridge had piqued my interest for quite some time. Furthermore, if one were to go off of the name of the peak alone, it seemed like the obvious choice to avoid holiday weekend crowds in Rocky Mountain National Park. I ended up really enjoying this loop, particularly the opportunity to explore so many of Wild Basin's alpine lakes, so I figured I'd share some photos and a brief discussion of the North Ridge route.

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I arrived at the Wild Basin ranger station around 4:30AM. Since it was only a few days after the full moon, there were faint shadows of the trees cast across the ground in the dim moonlight. I got out of the car and switched my headlamp on. Nothing. I pressed the button a few more times and it refused to turn on. Despite changing the batteries and checking it the day prior, it was clear that something was broken. I laced up my shoes using the light from the car and then set off for Thunder Lake, hopping through the patches of moonlight in the forest. My eyes slowly adjusted to the dim surroundings, but the woods still appeared blurry in the dark, and I jumped at every little sound in the forest. Thankfully, the long summer days meant that first light arrived soon after.

I was surprised to have not seen anyone yet despite the fact that there were a few cars in the parking lot when I arrived. The sunrise started illuminating the basin, and I continued up towards Thunder Lake.

About a mile below the lake, I heard a rustling in the woods next to the trail, and turned to my right to see a black bear mere feet from the trail. While it was clear that the bear hadn't noticed me, I felt overcome by a caveman-brain surge of adrenaline. I had seen bears before, but from a significant distance, and I had little interest in finding out how friendly this particular bear might be up close. Since the bear was still minding its own business, I retreated about 100 feet down the trail and grabbed a couple of rocks in the unlikely event that I would need to fight back at all. I waited for a few minutes in my spot down the trail in hopes that the bear would continue on its way. I then yelled "hey bear" a couple of times and banged the rocks together in order to announce my presence and avoid startling the bear if it was still there. I cautiously continued back up the trail around the corner, and the bear was gone, having continued on its way. Still a little amped up on adrenaline, I kept hiking, thankful that this encounter was uneventful. Wild Basin is definitely a pretty sweet place for a bear to live.

Everything was glowing in the early morning sun as I arrived at Thunder Lake.

I basked in the alpenglow and had a quick snack before hiking up to Boulder-Grand pass. A surprisingly well-traveled trail continues up the basin, towards Lake of Many Winds.

I had spent much of the morning thinking about how Boulder-Grand pass might have gotten its name, before looking at a map and realizing that it lies on the boundary of Boulder County and Grand County. Mystery solved.

I ascended the gully to looker's right of the snowfield, which had plenty of loose rock, but probably didn't exceed class 2.

Once on the broad, grassy pass, I walked south towards Isolation Peak. I also spotted what I believe to be a Pine Marten wandering around on the ridge. I opted to skip Tanima Peak since I was feeling a bit more worked than expected from the hike in. The main ridge soon came into view.

The first section of the ridge is fairly straightforward class 3 scrambling past a couple of gendarmes, including the overhanging one called The Cleaver. The route then skirts The Cleaver to the east and drops into an east-facing gully. This gully had some snow remaining which seemed rather difficult to avoid. Since the snow was in pretty perfect condition, I decided to just kick some steps for the final section of the couloir, rather than looking for a more difficult route to avoid it on rock.

Once above the gully, I arrived at the ledge the marks the start of the crux wall.

The crux headwall isn't particularly long (probably only 100 feet of climbing), and is graded at 5.4 in the guidebook. I've read that it can be bypassed by continuing along a grass ledge to a class 3/4 gully to regain the ridge, though I was not able to get a look at the gully.

The route up the crux headwall follows a flake rightward on good holds and good rock to the base of a steeper section, before turning sharply left and traversing back to the ridge line. The crux of the headwall is a section of the traverse right near the end with feet on a small, horizontal rail, and hands on a series of somewhat hidden underclings and sidepulls. The holds are positive and on decent rock, but there are a few moves that require attention to body positioning. Additionally, the rock bulges around eye level in this section, making it feel steeper, adding to the exposure. Overall, the difficulty felt comparable to some other alpine ridges in the area at a similar grade like Blitzen Ridge. No individual move was particularly difficult, but the crux moves are arguably the most exposed moves on the route, which isn't a great combination. Therefore, I'd recommend comfort on tougher grade before attempting this headwall. Fun moves on good rock overall, though.

Once above the headwall, there are some easier but still exposed moves to regain the ridge.

From there, the ridge eases, and it's just easy scrambling and a LOT of talus-hopping to the top.

There are also an ample amount of false summits along the way.

After even more endless talus-hopping, I eventually arrived at the summit. According to the Long Ranger's blog, Isolation is the farthest peak in the Front Range from any paved roads, and it sure feels like it from the top. It definitely lives up to its name.

I was running out of steam when I arrived at the summit, but some dried mango helped remedy this issue. There is a damaged summit register, but the canister is falling apart and cracked, and lacks paper.

I tried not to think about how long of a walk it would be back to the trailhead as I started down the loose talus slope toward the grassy saddle between Isolation and Mahana peaks.

Here is where a navigational issue came into play. Along the ridge, I had misidentified Frigid Lake as Isolation Lake. I spent a few minutes walking northeast on the Isolation-Mahana saddle before realizing that I was descending into the wrong drainage when I noticed that I was quite far from my route line on my map. I considered just descending into the Eagle Lake drainage, but my map made this look like it might involve quite a bit more bushwhacking. I don't know for sure whether this would be the case, but I opted to get back on the known route, and made a 180 degree turn back toward the lake that was actually Isolation Lake.

It was smooth sailing on grass and talus down to Isolation Lake, with great views of the Ouzel Peak ridge on the way down.

From Isolation Lake it was a relatively straightforward walk down to Pipit Lake, except for a few willow sections to avoid near the bottom. I considered taking a swim in Pipit lake, but I only needed to dip one finger in the water before realizing that it was far too cold for me.

There were ample wildflowers on the descent.

This whole drainage felt a lot like the remote basins in the Wind River Range, just way closer to home. It's amazing that places like this are close enough to be a day trip from Denver.

Below Lark Pond, there were some thicker willows and cliffs to avoid—a task that I can imagine would be quite difficult if one were ascending from this direction in the dark.

I admired the view at Bluebird Lake while eating some leftover naan. It was at this point that I saw the first other people that I had seen all day.

Eventually I headed down, and soon after it started drizzling as strong winds blew through the valley. I'm definitely glad to have started early enough so as to not be on the summit when the short-lived storm rolled in. I walked past plenty of other hikers enjoying Wild Basin on the way down, particularly in the Calypso Cascades area.

Structuring a loop route for Isolation Peak like this is a great way to see many of Wild Basin's alpine lakes in a single day. Overall, I'd say that spending a beautiful day on America's public lands was not a bad way to spend the 4th of July. Thanks for reading!