Flat Tops Wilderness

Arthur Carhart's 1919 visit to Trappers Lake, in the verdant embrace of the Flat Tops, prompted him to be the first U.S. Forest Service official to initiate a plea for Wilderness preservation. No wonder he found the area so entrancing: behind Trappers Lake loom majestic volcanic cliffs, and beyond them a vast subalpine terrain reluctantly yields to alpine tundra — part of the White River Plateau, with an average elevation of about 10,000 feet. Approximately 110 lakes and ponds, often unnamed, dot the country above and below numerous flat-topped cliffs, and roughly 100 miles of fishable streams run through the area. The valleys and relatively gentle land above the cliffs offer over 160 miles of trails. This is ideal country for stock users and for traveling cross-country; the hiking is inviting and limitless. Elk, deer, and moose find the area quite pleasant in the summer. A skeletal forest of dead spruce and fir stretches across the higher slopes below the tundra, the eerie legacy of a 1940s bark beetle epidemic. In 2002, more than 17,000 acres burned around Trappers Lake and over 5,500 in the vicinity of Lost Lakes in the East Fork of the Williams Fork drainage — almost 10 percent of the area. The Flat Tops is Colorado's second largest Wilderness, a precious expanse of breathtakingly beautiful open land. It is managed by the Forest Service and was designated in 1975.