Stag Gulch Hike in Edwards, Colorado
My sister was looking to do a hike with me last weekend and with there being snow on the ground in much of Summit County, we decided to head over to Edwards in Eagle County and hope that a hike at slightly lower elevation would have little to no snow on it.
We decided to hike up Stag Gulch Trail from the Squaw Creek Trailhead, which did end up having snow on it, however the weather was gorgeous with bright sunshine and no wind so there was very little to complain about. About a mile into the hike, we caught up to a group of 7 guys from Texas that claimed they had just seen a bear. We hadn’t seen it ourselves, but weren’t worried about running into it again…with how much noise the guys were making, we were pretty sure it got scared away.
Beautiful views right from the start!
The first 1-2 miles of the hike were filled with aspen trees that had all recently lost their leaves. We were clearly a few weeks too late to have experienced the leaves in full swing so we made a note to come back earlier next fall as it would be a great fall hike when the aspens all have yellow leaves.
Shortly above 9,250 ft, the grade of the trail started flattening out, and we started walking towards the top of Bellyache Mountain. I wonder how the mountain got its name? I’ll have to look that up sometime. We eventually came to a snow-covered meadow that gave us great views towards the mountains in the Holy Cross Wilderness as well as views of the entire Gore Range.
In the meadow with the Gore Range behind us
We walked on a dirt road in this meadow for some time and then decided to turn around and head back the way we came. A lot of the snow had melted at this point and the hike back down was much muddier than it was on the way up, which ended up being a lot more slippery and treacherous than we expected. We sure were thankful to have trekking poles for that descent.
Overall, it was a beautiful hike that wasn’t too strenuous. We ended up hiking 5.7 miles with 1,500 ft of vert. This hike would be great to do almost any time of year, but especially during the peak color change in the fall.
Sun glistening on the frost-covered grass
