Caribou Pass Trail is a 6.3 mile lightly trafficked out and back trail located near Tabernash, Colorado that features a river and is rated as moderate. The trail is primarily used for hiking and walking and is best used from June until November.
hiking
walking
river
views
wild flowers
Directions from Granby: Travel southeast on Highway 40 approximately 14 miles to County Road 84. Travel northeast for 6 miles to Forest Road 129, then east 6 miles to the Junco Lake Trailhead.
Cool trail! Going up the pass is super steep, but near the top there are some beautiful views before you get up to Dorothy Lake. Did this trail with a pack on, great workout.
We hiked to Junco Lake, which was breathtaking. The trail is a great workout with the most beautiful scenic views and lots of water. The downside? TONS of people. Granted, we did it the Saturday before a holiday weekend, so hopefully we just had terrible luck, but it felt like a Disneyland ride just walking among groups of people. There were a few ranger sightings and they were cleaning up the well maintained trails. This would be a gorgeous trail for a hot day, but definitely go early if you don't want to feel like a sheep being herded in! Overall we enjoyed being able to camp near the trailhead and walk in to a beautiful trail, it is worth it, but just be ready for a lot of people and a lot of leashed dogs!
Great and strenuous hike for the short distance. Weather was gorgeous and everything in bloom. However pass was covered by some snow towards the end to which my companions wanted to turn back (could have went up and around). I left the party briefly to summit the peak which offered stunning views and was about an additional 600-800 feet up.
One you make it to the pass a little after 4 miles near the pass - there are many great connecting hikes in the area if you would like to really add some mileage to this hike most likely making it an overnighter. Trails lead to nearby lakes down about 1,500 ft below, or connect all the way to Lake Dorothy and the Fourth of July trail.
After Arapaho pass headed on to Caribou pass. Almost made it to the end but got scared at the narrow ledge, sloping with 800 ft drop off which had some parts with scree and another with small patch of snow where you had to either go around over or under. My friend and I are both afraid of heights. If Ur ok with heights would be fine to continue on. We had trouble navigating around the scree and the small snow patch and decided to turn around and go to Lake Dorothy instead. Maybe next time. Pretty view of the lakes before you get to the pass.
Awesome hike. The lake is spectator at the top. Some steep spots for sure. Trail is very narrow with large drop offs about 1/2 mile before lake.