Willow Lake Southern Colorado Hike Guide
Willow Lake is a high alpine lake located in the Sangre de Cristo Range of southern Colorado. The lake is a popular spot since it serves as a base camp for many hikers attempting Kit Carson and Challenger Point. A longer hike, Willow Lake is family friendly and a nice spot to have a mini backpacking trip as well. This lake gets crowded on summer weekends, especially on holidays. Trail conditions up to the lake range from packed dirt to some small boulder fields. Avoid hiking up to Willow Lake in late June and early July because the mosquitoes in this area are NO JOKE.
Willow Lake Quick Facts
Willow Lake Rating: ★★★★ (⅘ Stars)
Distance: 9.66 Miles RT
Elevation Start: 9,000 ft (TH), 11,600 ft (Willow Lake)
Total Elevation Gain: 2,500 ft
Willow Lake Elevation: 11,600 ft
Estimated Time to Complete: 2-3 hours to Willow Lake
Difficulty: Moderate What does this mean?
Class: Class 2 – What does this mean?
Season: July – October (Expect snow outside of this window and lingering snow inside of these months)
Directions to Willow Creek
Trailhead: Willow Creek trailhead
Getting Here: The Willow Creek trailhead is located right outside of the small town of Crestone, Colorado. To get here, from US 285 (north or south) navigate to CO17 and work towards the town of Moffat. Once in Moffat, turn onto Co Road T/Russell St. Follow this until it turns into Birch St right outside of Crestone. Follow Birch St left until you reach Golden Avenue. Take a left on Alder St and a right on Galena Avenue. Galena turns into a dirt road which you will follow straight until you reach the trailhead. The dirt road is passable by all vehicles unless you have a super low rider. To avoid following these instructions, you can enter “Willow Creek Trailhead Westcliffe, CO” into your favorite navigational device.
Parking: Parking is free at the Willow Creek trailhead and can fit about 20-25 cars comfortably. Since Kit Carson & Challenger Point are popular hiking destinations (both accessed from this TH), this lot will fill up on most weekends. There is a new (as of 2017) non plumbing bathroom at the trailhead, bring your own TP though.
Summary
Dogs: Willow Lake is a dog friendly hike with lots of water sources along the way.
Camping: There are a number of camping spots near Willow Lake and about a ½ mile away from it. If you don’t want to backpack in, you can camp along the dirt road near the TH or at the trailhead itself. Be advised that both areas (up near the lake and along the dirt road) can get crowded, especially during summer weekends.
Make it a Loop: Willow Lake is an out and back hike. However, you could easily kick your hike up a notch by adding either Kit Carson or Challenger Point, two 14ers in the area.
Trail X Factors: Switchbacks
Switchbacks are a normal part of most hikes, but the trail up to Willow Lake is dominated by them. To summarize the trail: start on flat, hike switchbacks, enter field, more switchbacks, cross a river and you are there. Easily, 80% of the hike up the beautiful lake is switchbacks. If you are not familiar, a switchback is when the trail zigs and zags up a hill or mountain instead of going straight. While these do not negatively affect the hike, they can be mentally taxing on the way down when you just want to get back to your car.
Hike Tip(s): Hey, did you know that mosquitoes suck? No pun intended. Simply put, these small blood suckers can absolutely ruin a trip to Willow Lake. Many hikers are eager to start their summer hiking objectives once the snow melts in late June and early July. However, these weeks are some of the worst of the year, especially in the Sangre’s for mosquitoes. For a span of 2-4 weeks, these annoying bugs will try to suck you dry. Avoid hiking to Willow Lake during this time period or come prepared to be on the dinner menu for thousands of locals.
Best Views: Willow Lake offers a variety of awesome photo opportunities. On your way up to the hike, you will enter a large spanning field (pictured below) that gives you a great preview of the hike ahead. Once at the lake, there are dramatic views of Challenger Point, wildflowers and of course the large waterfall at the east side of the lake. If you explore the area, you may encounter wildlife and some caves. At night, this is a great place to shoot the stars because its far removed from most of the light pollution in the area.
Willow Lake Hike Route
Includes hike up to Challenger Point
Gear Needed
- Men’s Trail Runners
- Women’s Trail Runners
- La Sportiva Trango Hiking Boots (Men’s)
- La Sportiva Trango Hiking Booths (Women’s)
- Backpack
- Food & Water
- Optional: Bug spray & bug nets
- Optional: Garmin inReach
- Optional: Hiking Poles
- Optional: Headlamp
- Optional: Garmin Fenix Watch
- Optional: Camera and Lens
- Optional: GoPro, Joby Tripod
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My Trip to Willow Lake: August 2017
Editor’s Note: My hike up to Willow Lake was part of a larger hike to summit Challenger Point and Kit Carson, but I thought it was a worthy of its own hike post. This summary takes bits and pieces of my other hike with some expanded sections.
I arrived to the trailhead around 9PM on a Friday night, ate a gourmet ramen dinner, set-up my tent and went to bed. When I woke up around 3:30AM the next morning, I was surprisingly well rested and ready to go. Kit Carson & Challenger Point were my first mountains fueled by a vegan diet and first 14ers post Boulder 70.3. I was curious to see how my body would react on both fronts. I popped in my contacts, put on my bag and hit the trail right around 4AM. After a small stream crossing, the trail entered something I was not at all familiar with in Colorado, sand. If I had forgot my proximity to the Great Sand Dunes National Park, I was given a reminder right away.
Switchbacks dominated most of the pre dawn hours of the morning. I worked my way up the initial hill to an open field and eventually up another hill, with lots of switchbacks along the way. I crossed Willow Creek around 6:30AM and was about 3 miles into the hike. The sun rose shortly after and I finally reached the top of the hill I had been progressing up all morning. Luckily, all of the bugs that live in this area had died off. These bugs can literally ruin your hike, don’t think this is an exaggeration.
It was now 7AM and I started passing tents filled with hikers who were still in slumber from the night before. I reached Willow Lake and was in awe. It was a beautiful scene: a massive alpine lake with a towering waterfall at the east edge. I shot some video, ate my luxurious breakfast and moved on. I ran into some deer who were also eating their morning meal, they wanted nothing to do with me and hopped away. I continued up the trail to take some pictures of the lake at different angles under the morning golden hour light. Once I reached the waterfall, I snapped some pictures of it looking down in the lake. It was such a beautiful scene that I did not want to leave it, but I knew that my day had bigger plans ahead.
After hiking Challenger Point and Kit Carson, I was exhausted and just wanted to get back to my car. It was the last weekend in August and there were a million people camping at Willow Lake or hiking up to set-up camp there. Although I wanted nothing more than to sleep, I was glad I didn’t have to share this beautiful sliver of nature with so many other people. I half jogged, half ran down the trail back to my car with dreams of a cold beer from Crestone Brewery and was so happy to sit down on the leather seats of my car.