Rawah Wilderness – Twin Lakes Figure Eight

The Rawah Wilderness is beautiful area for a long weekend backpack. It isn’t the loneliest place in the world, especially on the weekend near the trailheads. However, once you get out of the treeline the views are spectacular and you’ll hardly see anyone. I went out on a fantastic weekend in July and never shared a campsite.

The hike can be a bit arduous, as are most hikes around alpine lakes. If you are not in great shape or not very experienced then I suggest taking four days to do the loop.

If you can make it, I highly recommend camping at Twin Crater Lakes.

• The trailhead can be a bit hard to find, especially at night. Just follow the GPS coordinates–google maps can’t route you there very well. You may not see the parking lot if it is dark. You’ll get to a large curve in the road with a ranch house at the corner. This is where you want to turn left to pull in to the parking lot. If you’re approaching from the south, this will be right after passing Brown’s Park, a car camping site.
• If you’re starting out on the Link Trail (as the topo map suggests), you’ll want to follow the signs for the McIntyre trail which will be on the north end of the parking lot. If I remember correctly, there is a sign there that has both trail names but the “Link” portion is worn and faded. The topo map also suggests that the Link trail and Brown’s park are connected–I could find no such connection.
• I was unable to find the east-bound trail off of the Medicine Bow trail. This is the intersection is marked at 40.7341,-105.9991 on the linked topo map. I eventually hiked off route toward my campsite and ended up intersecting with the trail.