Lake Charles & Mystic Island Lake Backpacking Trip, Holy Cross Wilderness, Fulford, Colorado

Jul 21

Krista, Mike, and Craig heading to Mystic Island Lake on the second day

Lake Charles and Mystic Island Lake are some of the most beautiful lakes in the Holy Cross Wilderness. They are popular backpacking destinations for a reason. My dad, Craig, was in town visiting us so we decided to go on a 3 day/2 night backpacking trip to Lake Charles with the hope of also catching some fish.

We started out from the trailhead around 10:30 am. We decided to go in via the Lake Charles Trail because it would be shorter and have less elevation gain. This trail meanders along East Brush Creek, which is a beautiful stream that comes out of Lake Charles. Most of the hike in was below tree line and was quite shady. The trail started out fairly moderately from the trailhead and got steeper as we got closer to Lake Charles. We hiked in on a Sunday and saw quite a few backpackers hiking out. We were glad we decided not to do this trip on a Friday or Saturday night.

After about 4 miles, we made it to Lake Charles. It seemed there was only one other group camping there that night so we had no problem finding a nice site on the east end of the lake. After setting up camp and filtering some water, we decided to try our luck at fishing so we assembled our fly poles. We headed down to the inlet of Lake Charles and the few small tarns above it. We caught quite a few brook trout and had a great evening fishing before retiring for the night.

The next morning we slept in since we only had a mile hike up to Mystic Island Lake where we planned to spend the day relaxing and fishing. We set out from camp and found that the trail to the upper lake was quite muddy. It must not have been too long ago that the snow had melted on that trail. We made it to the lake and took a few moments just to appreciate how beautiful of a lake it is. We then set out to find the best fishing spots. We had less luck here than at Lake Charles. The fish in Mystic Island Lake were much more skittish and selective about what they would bite. We were able to see many fish swimming near the outlet stream, but they would spook very easily and had no interest in our flies. We had better luck elsewhere around the lake, but certainly had to work for the fish.

It was quite a warm day so at lunch time I decided to take a dip in the lake. As you can see in the pictures, the lake had snow on the shores, and I can confirm its temperature was about 34 degrees. It felt great to jump in but I wasn’t in for more than a minute before I was trying to dry off in the sun. I tried my luck at fishing for a little longer while Mike and my dad took a siesta in the shade. We headed back down to our camp at Lake Charles around mid-afternoon. After an early dinner, Mike and I fished the Lake Charles inlet again with a fair amount of luck. Eventually, we got tired of standing and decided to retire for the night.

We woke up on the third day with the intention to just hike back to the car the way we came in. We set out mid-morning and got back to the trailhead without any incidents. At that point we were ready for a real meal so we headed down to the town of Eagle to grab burgers and nachos. What a great trip it was!

Total stats: 10.5 miles, 2200 vert.