You are right. We did take the path that AllTrails had mapped out, we just parked a little farther down the road from the parking lot. We were looking for a split off of the Ruby Jewel trail called the Clark Peak trail, but couldn't find it. If you are familiar with the COTREX website or app, they have it listed on there, but I think it's overgrown at this point. From what I can tell, the Clark Peak trail split was supposed to be right before the split with the Hidden Valley/Kelly Lake split. You can see it at this website when you zoom into the area: trails.colorado.gov
It was nice and peaceful there having it to ourselves. I thought it was called Ruby Jewel Lake because the trail is named that way, but some websites have the lake listed as just Jewel Lake, which is why I put the Ruby part in parentheses there on the video.
White-knuckling sounds like me when I drive either Trail Ridge Road or Fall River Road. My hands are all super tight and sweaty, I don't like exposure, hiking or driving. In hindsight, I think we could have driven to the lower trailhead parking lot area for Ruby Jewel. The road really doesn't get too bad until past that parking lot onto the official 4WD road. But either way, we didn't want to chance it with only have a 2WD mini SUV that already spins out some in loose dirt and rain as it is. We were only about a 1 mile down from the parking lot, so we didn't add too much to the whole trip thankfully.
@@MoodyPeaks I only took the Altima up since it was a rental. Years before (when I lived in the area) I tried to get my Civic up there but failed (though occasionally they improve the road and it may have been worse my first time up in ~2011)
The Clark Peak Summit Trails begins just after you you get through that boulder field on the way to Ruby Jewel Lake. It's overgrown at that junction (and is unsigned), but if you view it on Google Maps satellite view you'll see where it crosses the creek and switchbacks up the ridge that climbs Pipet Peak, which you can easily climb on the way up to Clark heading north on the Continental Divide.
Thank you for pointing that out. I see the route now on the satellite view. Yeah it is just a little farther up the trail than the old overgrown cutoff COTREX showed us, and then it looks like you head south across the rocks and it connects to that old Clark Peak summit trail further along in it. We will have to try that loop route next time we are out there. The information is much appreciated.
@@MoodyPeaks You're most welcome. Was actually out there doing Clark the Saturday before--even parked at the same spot since I was driving a Corolla. Got halfway up that last hill and my bottom scraped, and I just slowly reversed my way back down to that parking spot lol
![Highest Peak in the Medicine Bows! Hiking Clark Peak [State Forest State Park & Routt NF]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/PGUaH30tiuQ/mqdefault.jpg)
That was awesome
Great vid, I looked on Alltrails and the trail they have is pretty much the same as the way you went.
You are right. We did take the path that AllTrails had mapped out, we just parked a little farther down the road from the parking lot. We were looking for a split off of the Ruby Jewel trail called the Clark Peak trail, but couldn't find it. If you are familiar with the COTREX website or app, they have it listed on there, but I think it's overgrown at this point. From what I can tell, the Clark Peak trail split was supposed to be right before the split with the Hidden Valley/Kelly Lake split. You can see it at this website when you zoom into the area: trails.colorado.gov
Thats a nice little mountain lake
It was nice and peaceful there having it to ourselves. I thought it was called Ruby Jewel Lake because the trail is named that way, but some websites have the lake listed as just Jewel Lake, which is why I put the Ruby part in parentheses there on the video.
@@MoodyPeaks yeah I noticed that, I like ruby lake better than jewel lake tho. So that is what I will be callin it lol
I've gotten a Nissan Altima to the lower trailhead, but yeah, was white-knuckling it up that last steep hill
White-knuckling sounds like me when I drive either Trail Ridge Road or Fall River Road. My hands are all super tight and sweaty, I don't like exposure, hiking or driving. In hindsight, I think we could have driven to the lower trailhead parking lot area for Ruby Jewel. The road really doesn't get too bad until past that parking lot onto the official 4WD road. But either way, we didn't want to chance it with only have a 2WD mini SUV that already spins out some in loose dirt and rain as it is. We were only about a 1 mile down from the parking lot, so we didn't add too much to the whole trip thankfully.
@@MoodyPeaks I only took the Altima up since it was a rental. Years before (when I lived in the area) I tried to get my Civic up there but failed (though occasionally they improve the road and it may have been worse my first time up in ~2011)
The Clark Peak Summit Trails begins just after you you get through that boulder field on the way to Ruby Jewel Lake. It's overgrown at that junction (and is unsigned), but if you view it on Google Maps satellite view you'll see where it crosses the creek and switchbacks up the ridge that climbs Pipet Peak, which you can easily climb on the way up to Clark heading north on the Continental Divide.
Thank you for pointing that out. I see the route now on the satellite view. Yeah it is just a little farther up the trail than the old overgrown cutoff COTREX showed us, and then it looks like you head south across the rocks and it connects to that old Clark Peak summit trail further along in it. We will have to try that loop route next time we are out there. The information is much appreciated.
@@MoodyPeaks You're most welcome. Was actually out there doing Clark the Saturday before--even parked at the same spot since I was driving a Corolla. Got halfway up that last hill and my bottom scraped, and I just slowly reversed my way back down to that parking spot lol