Pear Lake Rocky Mountain National Park

Derek Regensburger
July 20, 2021
Colorado / Landscape / Rocky Mountain National Park

I backpacked to Pear Lake in the southern most part of the Wild Basin area of Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday. Pear Lake is a beautiful alpine lake and apart from the scenery offers the chance to catch native greenback cutthroat trout.

Getting to Pear Lake is something of a challenge. The lake can be reached via three different trailheads (Wild Basin, Allenspark, and Finch Lake), the shortest of which is just over 6 miles. I choose to depart from the Finch Lake trailhead, putting the trek at 6.5 miles. This trail is the most physically challenging of the three. Immediately, the trail soars 800 feet in the first .8 miles along a narrow, rocky trail. No switchbacks here as the trail climbs unrelentingly until it reaches a small saddle. The trail then meanders through a large aspen forest and wildflower meadow, a rare treat in Rocky Mountain. This is a chance to catch your breath for the next ascent. Just after intersecting with a spur of the Allenspark Trail about 1.8 miles in, the trail climbs steadily again, this time up a series of rock stairs. Just who thought it was a good idea to use 1.5 foot tall boulders as trail building material? Needless to say, this section presents a grueling uphill section.

At mile 2.5, the trail comes to a Y with the Allenspark trail and a connector to the Calypso Cascades. Over the next two miles, the trail continues to ascend but at a much more gradual pace. After some pretty views of Mount Meeker and Long’s Peak in the distance, the trail enters the forest and is fairly nondescript. Just before the 4 mile mark, the trail takes a steep descent of 300 feet into the Finch Lake basin. Nothing bad about a descent except that this section has to be climbed on the return. Finch Lake sits at 4.5 miles along the trail. It is a pretty lake surrounded by forest with a couple of peaks poking up in the distance. Follow the trail to the right as it crosses the creek and then ascends again. This section is steep but thankfully short. After reaching a lily pad pond in another mile or so, the trail flattens out before making one last ascent into the Pear Lake basin.

Here is the reward for this hard hike. Pear Lake is surrounded by mountains and is one of the prettiest in the park. It used to be much larger thanks to an earthen dam but the dam has since been removed. The lake is now about 30 feet less wide and about 6 feet less deep. And yes, there is still evidence of a bathtub ring even after the dam was removed in 1988. The lake holds a small but feisty collection of Greenback Cutthroat trout. I managed to hook a half dozen or so in my couple hours of fishing. They ranged in size from 3″ to 11″. There is one campsite above the lake which I was lucky enough to snag in the backcountry lottery in March. Photography is best here in the morning. Because Pear Lake is situated nearly east to west, the sun disappears two hours before sunset. Conversely, almost the entire lake was in sunshine just after sunrise.