LOVELAND PASS WESTTime: 2-3 hours Distance: 3.2-mile loopElevation gain: 489 feetHigh point: 12,479 feetRating: Moderate

Usually open: July-Sept.Topo: USGS Loveland Pass 1958, rev. 1987The Hike of the Week from The New Summit Hiker is Loveland Pass West, a moderate, above-treeline 3.2-mile loop that begins at the Loveland Pass summit. Walk along America’s rocky spine with neck-swiveling views and tundra wildflowers. This short trail is featured because afternoon storms have begun. Be sure to hike in the morning and get off the tundra before electrical storms hit. Summer rests on this lofty basin as briefly as a butterfly on a flower. Snow-clogged most of June and bronzed with autumn past mid-August, this ridge-rimmed bowl has only a few short weeks to burst into bloom. Its beauty is worth the wait.To get there, drive U.S. 6 to the Loveland Pass summit. Park in the marked area.

The trail begins across the road west from the parking area. Notice the high ridge that curves west then north around the alpine bowl. The ridge is your route. With this in mind, go left at the first fork, avoiding the trail that drops right into the bowl.Two trails ascend the ridge. Stay left and walk along the soaring backbone of the Rockies, the Continental Divide, to a high point at 12,479 feet. Veer right here, following cairns along the ridge. Later, both trail and cairns peter out but the route north is clear. Continue to hike north to a large stone wind shelter at the next high point, 12,276 feet, at 2.1 miles. Hikers end at this view point and return on the same route.If you’re up for a bit of route finding, try the loop down across the green basin, a total hiking distance of 3.2 miles from the trailhead.To do the loop, drop north a short distance from the high point then make a tight hairpin turn right, hugging the ridge below the summit. Avoid descending the steep slope here. Reach a mini-saddle and look for a bushy draw that is less steep than surrounding terrain. Traverse this down. Keep your eyes on the faraway trail viewed southeast across the bowl. You will meet this trail later. Stay a bit high, crossing streams. Meet the basin trail at the conifer forest.Hikers planning to do the loop should take a topo map and compass and study the contour lines on the map. The route is not difficult if you choose the proper descent, as indicted by the gentler map contour lines.Like most areas above timberline, this alpine region can be benevolent – or harsh. Hike early in the day to avoid afternoon electrical storms. Take adequate clothing for wind and weather protection. Don’t go if late season snows threaten.Views from the ridge top above the trailhead include Keystone and Breckenridge ski areas, the towering Tenmile Range and the Saguache in the distance.

The Saguache Range hosts the legendary Mount of the Holy Cross, a cross of snow on a stark 14,005-foot mountain face. Photographer William Henry Jackson sought the cross, immortalized by poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Jackson heard of an 1869 cross sighting from this Loveland Pass area. Finally able to locate the elusive peak, he went on to shoot the Mount’s first photograph, using a glass plate negative, on Aug. 23, 1873.After the trail turns northward, enjoy great views of Loveland Ski Area, Interstate 70’s Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel and the Williams Fork Range, with 12,303-foot Ute Peak as its capstone. (You can hike this mountain. See the book’s trail No. 49 for the Ute Peak trail.) Mt. Trelease and Pettingell lie due north. Below is the Clear Creek valley, striped by I-70. Mt. Sniktau rises east.Loveland Pass, built in 1879, superseded an earlier pass, 13,132-foot Argentine, this area’s first major east-west route. Even after Loveland became the stagecoach and freight leader, rival Argentine stole the winter traffic. The nation’s highest Rocky Mountain road crossing, wind-scoured Argentine was often blown free of snow. But disgruntled travelers sometimes had to crawl on hands and knees to avoid being blown off the pass. As soon as winter’s grip loosened, traffic returned to Loveland Pass.As always, enjoy your hike!Mary Ellen Gilliland is the author of The New Summit Hiker, a guide for 50 historic hiking trails near Breckenridge, Frisco, Copper Mountain, Keystone, Dillon and in the Ptarmigan Peak and Eagles Nest Wilderness areas. The book is available in Summit County and Vail bookstores, supermarkets and sporting goods stores or by calling Alpenrose Press at (970) 468-6273. (Request a free autograph by author.) For more trails information visit http://www.alpenrosepress.com