How to get there:
Drive past the small village of Nederland (west of
Boulder) and continue north on Highway 72 for 14 miles
to Ward. From there go left at the Forest Service road sign,
the ranger up the road will collect 5 dollars and the road
is paved all the way to Long Lake Trailhead next to a
large parking lot. Route description:
The hike starts fairly flat between large trees. The trail then
passes Long Lake. The approach continues to Isabelle Lake
which is passed on the right hand side. From here for about another mile
the trail climbs to a small lake without a name at 3481m. The next section
is a small trail that heads (in switch-backs) straight up to the
right, it is quite obvious.
As soon as the trail reaches an area with large terasses, then leave
the trail (it goes to the Isabelle Glacier) and head into the
basin just below the Navajo snowfield (a large snowfield just below and right
of the peak). The standard route heads up "Airplane Gulley", this is
the gully that hits the ridge east of Navajo several hundred meters from
the place where the summit pyramid meets the ridge. There is another
gully to the right of this one, but it has a steep step in it. Another
distinction is that Airplane Gulley has a fairly distinct pile
of boulders spreading out in a V-shape at its bottom. The gully itself
is easy and not steep, it was filled with (new) snow when we did
the ascent, quite an easy walk up to the ridge. Actually, before
the proper gully hits the ridge there is a branch going right (west).
This is shorter and there is no reason not bto take it. Up here the
wreckage of an airplane is very prominent. It is a C-47 (relative of the
DC-3, see below) that
crashed here January 21st 1948. Smaller pieces from the aircraft are scattered
all over the gully, a few significant pieces have made it all
the way to the very bottom of the gully.
Once on the ridge, it is easy to follow it to the southern face of
Navajo which is easily climbed until the very last rockband defining
the summit itself. Angle about 50 meters right, there a very
pronounced chimney, deeply set in the rock provides a direct and
fun route to the summit. You exit the chimney to the left on two small easy
ledges (we had partial snow, but still no difficulties), then a short,
well protected almost flat mini-gully (25 feet?) takes
you to the summit. There is
another (slightly easier?) route that goes around to the west below
the final rock-band, but we did not explore this. Comments:
Pål Jørgen 11 years old and I did this hike
on the first sunday of October. It took us 1.5 hours to the unnamed
lake, then 2 hours to the summit allowing for a few nice rests for
water and photos. We spent about half an hour on the summit and
returned the ascent route except for cutting directly down to
the lake where Heidi (Pål's mother) was waiting. A family hike
back to the trailhead concluded the trip in a total of 7 hours.
Resources:
Images
The Navajo Peak, notice the characteristic (steeper) summit block.
View east, the unnamed lake, Lake Isabelle and Long Lake.
A rest just below the summit rock. The chimney route to
the summit starts about 4m from here, about where the shaddow
ends, the sunny rock face is past the chimney.
The remains of the C-47 that crashed high in the gully route
to Navajo peak. (Later named `Airplane Gully')
January 21., 1948. For news coverage see below.