Highland Mary Trail

Sunday, June 27, 2021

A brief description from The Best Hiking in Southwest Colorado: "Hike to gorgeous lakes set amid scenic alpine meadows with terrific views. An optional extension follows a segment of the Continental Divide turning this hike into a loop with extended views of the surrounding peaks.."

Here is a link to the full trail description with an elevation profile and map for the Highland Mary Trail

We did not hike the option of the loop along the Continental Divide. Instead, we hiked out to the Verde Lake and back.

Hiking this trail seemed quite challenging, I think it was because this was our first full day at high altitude. Yesterday we had flown in from Seattle (basically at sea level), and today we were starting a hike at over 10,000'. Our hike added about an extra mile and an additional 400' of elevation gain because we did not drive the rental car up to the 4WD parking lot. Instead, we parked down at the bridge and hiked up, and then waded across the Cunningham Creek to reach the official trailhead.

We followed the trail up; it is on the east side of Cunningham Creek while you are in the forest, and then it turns to the west. We crossed the first branch, but then inadvertently followed the well-beaten path into a campsite, thinking we were still on the trail. And then it appeared as if the trail continue on behind the campsite. We walked aways, and the "trail" petered out into some dense undergrowth. Clearly not the correct route! We backtracked and found the proper trail crossed a second branch of Cunningham Creek, and now we were up in the alpine wilderness, above the timberline.

We did not see many people on the trail as we hiked up to Highland Mary, but we did meet a lone guy who was already coming down as we were crossing the boulder field. He was carrying a camera with a big lens and I asked if he had gotten some nice photos. It turns out he has his own website, and hikes trails all over the American West. He gave me a card with his website addres: gjhikes.com. He had constructed a webpage about his Highland Mary hike by the time I got back to Seattle and checked the link on the card.

Once you get through the boulder field, you have arrived at the Highland Mary Lakes. These were lovely gems, with mountains in the distance and patches of snow on the ground. There is a ridge that the trail goes up and over to reach the Verde Lakes. We ate lunch here. It was 12:15 PM when we stopped for lunch; we started at the trailhead at 9:10 AM, so it was a 3 hr hike for us to get up here. It took us 2 hours to hike back down to the start.

Back in Ouray, we ate a large Hawaiian Pizza for dinner, then drove over to the K.O.A. to meet Ed and Suz and make plans for tomorrow's hike to Blue Lakes.


Panorama Photos


Photos from the Highland Mary Trail


I copied the map and trail profile from the Hiking & Walking Highland Mary website