Holden to Heart Lake

From Holden Village to Heart Lake (Trail #1256) is about 5 miles and pretty easy in summer. Winter however provides some interesting challenges, the greatest being avalanche.

Due to fantastic weather the avalanche danger in the area was low so we struck out. At about 2 miles we encountered the first avalanche. It had tumbled down in December and took with it lots of trees rocks and dirt. We used ice axes to cross over the 300 yards or so to the other side only to encounter several smaller ones before we got to the lake. We didn’t go down to the shore because it would have required rope and descent gear. The huge waterfall near the east end of the lake is completely gone due to an avalanche. What a change from our normal summer views of the area. One look at the massive energy of the slides and be sure we wouldn’t want to be anywhere near when one of these lets go. What a way to spend a cold clear sunny day. 6 hours round trip including pauses for lunch and photos (although it took us at least 6 hours each way to travel to Holden from home. www.holdenvillage.org) I highly recommend it.