Hagerman Tunnel & Lake Colorado Hike Trail Guide
Hagerman Tunnel & Lake is a beautiful loop trail located just outside of Leadville, Colorado. This hike is family friendly, dog friendly and offers great views of the mountains in the area, high alpine lakes and the chance to see Hagerman Tunnel which is an old railroad tunnel. If you visit Hagerman Tunnel hike in the months of July and August, it usually is one of the best spots to view wildflowers in the area. Overall, this is an excellent hike and one that I highly recommend.
General Trail Information: Hagerman Tunnel
Hagerman Tunnel Hike Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5 Stars)
Distance: 6.5 Miles RT
Elevation Start: 10,988 ft
Highest Point: 11,535 ft
Total Elevation Gain: 620 ft
Estimated Time to Complete: 2-3 Hours RT
Difficulty: Easy What does this mean?
Class: Class 1
Season: June – October (Expect snow/frozen lakes outside of this period)
Directions to Hagerman Tunnel & Lake
Trailhead: Hagerman Pass
Getting Here: First, navigate towards Turquoise Lake in Leadville. You can enter the Sugarloaf Dam into your favorite navigational device. From the dam, continue on Turquoise Lake road and continue until the road reaches a “Y” intersection. Take a left onto the dirt road and continue for 4.7 miles on Hagerman Pass Road. About a ½ mile from the parking area, you will pass a massive parking lot that serves the Trailheads for Native Lake and Windsor Lake, do not park here. Instead, continue around the parking lot and up the dirt road to reach a much smaller parking area on your left.
The road to Hagerman Tunnel trail is narrow and dirt, but usually accessible by all cars.
Fees: None
Parking: The parking lot for Hagerman Tunnel trail can fit about 20 cars and has no restrooms at any point of the hike or at the trailhead.
Summary
Camping: Hagerman Tunnel allows camping along the trail (be sure to stay back 100 feet from sources of water) and presents dispersed camping options at the parking lot or further up Hagerman Pass trail. If you continue past the parking lot, the road will get more rough so be sure to use caution if you have a lower clearance vehicle.
Dogs: The hike to Hagerman Tunnel is dog friendly but usually does have a number of other hikers and dogs along the way. If your dog likes to swim, there is easy access in both Opal and Hagerman lake(s). Be prepared for a muddy car though because all of the water mixed with a dirt trail = muddy pups.
Make it a Loop: The trail to Hagerman Tunnel can be hiked in an out and back or a lollipop loop. Although it adds some distance, I highly recommend hiking the full lollipop loop as it offers much better views, more seclusion and adds almost no difficulty to the overall trip.
Trail X Factors: The hike on Hagerman Lake has two x factors, one positive (wild flowers) and one negative (mosquitoes). If you plan on visiting this hike in June – August you will have the chance to encounter loads of both. The mosquitoes are typically the worst after a very wet winter and summer that does not have a lot of nights that get below 40 degrees or so. Bring bug spray and a bug net to help make the hike more enjoyable. I am not a big “seek out wildflowers hikes” kind of guy, but I must admit it was pretty awesome to see the loads of different colors and varieties of wildflowers on this hike.
Hike Tip(s): If you want to avoid crowds on this hike, visit during the week as it is usually fairly busy on weekends. If you do not have that option, start off the hike by taking the loop counter clockwise to visit Hagerman Lake before Hagerman Tunnel and you will typically have less people by hiking this way.
Best Views: The hike to Hagerman Tunnel offers tremendous views basically right off the bat. As you hike along the old railroad bed after the first small stream crossing, you will be greeted with great mountain landscapes and wildflowers. Personally, my favorite views were at Hagerman Lake and above Opal Lake.
Hagerman Tunnel & Lake Hike Route
Gear Needed
- Men’s Trail Runners
- Women’s Trail Runners
- La Sportiva Trango Hiking Boots (Men’s)
- La Sportiva Trango Hiking Booths (Women’s)
- Backpack
- Food & Water
- Optional: Garmin inReach
- Optional: Hiking Poles
- Optional: Headlamp
- Optional: Bug spray and bug net
- Optional: Garmin Fenix Watch
- Optional: Camera and Lens
- Optional: GoPro, Joby Tripod
- *Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you.
Our Trip to Hagerman Tunnel: August 2019
The hike to Hagerman Tunnel and Hagerman Lake is one that I had on my list for quite some time. I am always drawn to old mining and train tunnels and I thought this one would be the perfect hike for Jackie and Juno to join on. If you have read more reviews in the past, you know that Jackie does not love anything super taxing when it comes to hiking and since it was the day after my half ironman of 2019, I was pretty tired as well.
We drove out to the trailhead along the well maintained dirt roads on a Sunday morning and arrived around 10AM. There were a handful of cars in the parking lot, but nothing compared to Windsor Lake parking lot just before the trailhead. We got Juno ready for the hike, found the start of the trail and started up the trail to Hagerman Tunnel. The hike started with a lovely open field and a small stream crossing to get us onto the old mining railroad tracks.
For the first mile or so, the hike was literally a straight line on the old railroad beds. There were lovely wildflowers along the way, mountain views, and a few stream crossings but overall it was basically a flat dirt path. Around the 1.5 mile mark, we had to bear right to continue onto the Hagerman Tunnel trail. Right after this turn, there was a small wooden sign with an arrow that suggested we kept straight, so like mindless humans we did!
During this part of the hike, we ran into a few groups of other hikers so I did my normal trail behavior of try to give them space and then realized they were moving too slowly and passed them. Shortly after, we hiked by some old buildings from the ghost town of Douglass City. This area seemed like a town you would see in Red Dead Redemption or a western movie. The sign talked about how it was home to 8 drinking establishments, knife fighting and a house of “jaded women.” Around this time, I told Jackie that I would have loved to have lived in these times. She was not thrilled by the comment.
We kept hiking and reached Opal Lake shortly after. There were like 3-4 other groups of people at the lake but I wanted to get some more experience flying the drone but I didn’t want to look like a complete asshat in front of strangers it was too windy. After a failed take off, I popped it back into my bag and decided I would try flying it later. Jackie, Juno and I continued past Opal Lake and reached the steepest part of the hike to get up to Hagerman Tunnel itself. The tunnel was about 10-20 degrees colder than the air outside but also had approximately 10-20 million mosquitoes in it. It was so cool thinking about trains and people working in this beautiful spot a hundred plus years ago. We snapped a couple of quick pictures and moved on so that we had some blood left in our bodies to get back to the car.
Instead of going back down to Opal Lake, we departed Hagerman Tunnel and headed over to Hagerman Lake. The old railroad bed worked through small canyons and fields of colorful wildflowers until we arrived at the large alpine lake just a few minutes of hiking later. Hagerman Lake was much more secluded and beautiful than Opal Lake. I once again tried to fly the drone, but my novice skills were not equipped to handle the winds and hordes of mosquitoes. Another failed attempt, why the hell did I buy this thing again?
I packed up the drone and we hiked through more beautiful fields of wildflowers to reach the start of the loop below Hagerman Tunnel. We hiked along the flat/straight railroad bed back to the car and reached it just as the afternoon thunderstorms and showers were rolling in.
Outside of the failed drone attempts, I loved the hike to Hagerman Tunnel and Hagerman Lake. The hike was super mellow but offered smaller crowds, beautiful wildflowers and tremendous views of the Sawatch Range Mountains. I would 100% repeat this hike and highly recommend it for anyone looking for a great hike in the Leadville area.
Questions or comments about the hike to Hagerman Tunnel? Leave a comment below or follow me on Instagram!
