Trail Review: Backcountry skiing at Arapahoe Lakes, East Portal Trailhead

Ryan and I are on a quest to find the best spots to backcountry ski when the avalanche danger is high and we don't want to get stuck on I-70.

Here is the video version of skiing at Arapahoe Lakes:



This past weekend we explored an area outside of Rollinsville, near Nederland, CO. The drive from Golden is easy since the unpaved road to the trailhead is actually plowed. We parked at the East Portal Trailhead, near Moffat tunnel. By the time we arrived at 10:30am on a Sunday, the parking lot was full! That being said, we saw very few people while out skiing since there are a lot of trails to explore.

The parking lot cleared out by the time we left

On our previous excursion to this area, we stuck to the South Boulder Creek trail. To get to Arapahoe Lakes, we started out on the South Boulder Creek Trail, but at ~1.2 miles, we turned right at the trail sign to go on the Forest Lakes Trail. At around 2.8 miles, we came to an open meadow (?) area. There were some skin tracks that went up to the right, so we first tried that path.

Choosing our path

The forest was a bit dense, so we weren't too keen on coming down through that area, so after about 200 feet of climbing, we turned around. We then took the more well used skin tracks to our left and climbed up through the some well spaced trees. This was definitely the way to go. The grade was mild, the trees weren't too dense, and it didn't look like there were any areas that could trigger an avalanche.

Skinning up!

We climbed about 500 feet to a little bit of a clearing area, where we could actually see the mountains. There were some awesome bowls and peaks above us, but we could see a few natural slide areas, so we didn't want to risk going any higher.

Cody wants to keep exploring

Maybe some day we will ski there

With our slight detour, the total ascent was 3.6 miles to this point. Skiing down through the trees was a blast- the 12" of fresh powder felt amazing, the grades were nice and mellow and the trees were well spaced.

The view near tree line where we took off our skins

Perfect day

I highly recommend this area if you are looking for a very long, very gradual climb, with little avy danger and great tree skiing. I also can't wait to get back here and check out some of the bigger bowls- you could make a really long run from the very peak all the way back to the car!

Powder!

Family ski day

Cody the ski dog

Perfect lines through the trees

Cody is swimming in powder!

Definitely bring food and water because you can spend a lot of time out there. The ski back down to the car was a lot of fun, but be careful of other people coming up!


Here is the Garmin Data: