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Backpack – Zirkel Circle via Slavonia Trailhead

Perfect 3-day (2-night) backpack that offered relatively short distances each day to hike and camp in truly a beautiful part of Colorado. This trip was late July and conditions were about perfect with no snow, plentiful water, great trail conditions, and beautiful wildflowers. This area is popular, so very heavily traveled.

Sean O'Connell Sean O'Connell
July 29, 2025
  • Road rough but passable

  • Trail conditions were generally very good.

    On day 1 there was a hint of wildfire smoke in the air.  Day 2 air quality was better, but then Day 3 conditions were the worst yet and got worse as we cam down in elevation to the TH.

    We suspected this area gets a ton of snow. Trail reports from just two or three weeks earlier still had reports of snow fields up at the Gilpin Lake side of the saddle.  We didn't encounter any on-trail snow.  However, there was plentiful water everywhere.....many small creeks all around.  Occasionally there were muddy spots on the trail or running water on the trail, but not excessive......just had to navigate around the mud a couple of times (no more than probably 50-yards in length total).

    Weather was perfect.  Sunny all three days, but more fluffy clouds rolling through most all day on Day 2 (Saturday).  No rain.  High temps were in the mid- to upper-70s (deg. F) while overnight lows on Night 1 dipped into the high 30s but stayed nice for Night 2 which was in the mid- to upper-40s (deg. F).

    Foliage was generally very green and lush everywhere, but more so along Gilpin Creek that was very lush and tons and tons of wildflowers in bloom. 

Day 1:  We departed as a group at 6:00 from the Woolly Mammoth Park-n-Ride on I-70 above Morrison.  We arrived at the Slavonia TH about 10:15 AM and after paying the day-use fee and getting our group situated we hit the trail.  We hiked in the counter-clockwise direction on the Zirkel Circle where we started at the Slavonia TH and took the Gilpin Trail #1161 about ¼ mile to a fork where we turned right on the Gold Creek Trail (#1150). We hiked about 4.2 miles (+1,350ft vert.) to Gold Creek Lake that was beautiful but many people could also be found enjoying the lake's beauty.  We continued down the trail and took a right at the fork onto Wyoming Trail for maybe a quarter mile.  We then went off-trail between the Wyoming Trail and Gold Creek Trail to find suitable camping.  We were required to camp more than 1/4 mile from Gold Creek Lake.  After setting up camp we took a short hike farther up Gold Creek Trail to the east up to the large meadow and beaver ponds....about 1 mile from Gold Creek Lake. We took a break and I pulled out my Tenkara fishing rod and caught 6 small brook trout in less than a half-hour.  The weather was about perfect with lots of sun and high temps around 77F.  We then hiked back to the lake about 5:30 and there were less people than earlier.  We enjoyed the lake and tried fishing there as well (1 fish caught).  After a short rest at the lake we hiked back to camp, made dinner, and turned in relatively early as I think everyone was a bit tired from having to be up very early to depart Denver so we got to the TH at a reasonable time.

Day 2:  After a quiet and calm night we had our breakfast and broke camp and were on trail by about 8:30.  We bushwhacked over to Gold Creek Trail and continued on east to the meadow where the trail began to climb and connected with Gilpin Lake Trail #570 (~1.5 miles from camp) and on up to the saddle that sits just immediately south of Gilpin Lake. We turned left on trail #570 and continued on another 1.5 miles to reach gorgeous Gilpin Lake (total 3 miles and +1,200 ft vert.).  We wanted to find a camp site first before returning to the lake to have lunch and spend a couple of hours to enjoy the awesome scenery and to dip a toe in the cool lake and possibly catch a fish.  Our off-trail bushwhacking to find camp was extremely fruitful as we found an old camp site that had plenty of flat spaces for our large group.  I am not going to tell you where that is as we don't want to turn it into a camp "Meca" in the woods there.  We went to the lake and people explored the shoreline attractions, sat to relax, or even did some fishing.  Fishing was very good and 8 fish were caught and two others almost.....plus tons of bites.  Gray clouds were building so we went back to camp about 5:00 for fear of possible rain.  It didn't rain and the threatening clouds broke up and just passed on.  We had dinner about 6:30 and played a couple of rounds of a word game (Contact) that one of the members taught us all.  We turned in about 8:30 and had a cloudless, rainless, and quiet night.

Day 3: We targeted getting on trail about 8:00 AM, but didn't actually head out until 8:15, after breakfast and breaking camp.  There were a few mule deer that wandered through out camp area which was a fun sight.  We bushwhacked back to the Gilpin Lake Trail which we took back to the TH. This last leg was virtually all downhill along Gilpin Creek (4.6 miles, virtually all downhill).  Again, lots of very green scenery and many, many wildflowers along the way and amazing vistas.  Our 4.6 miles took us 3 hours to get back to the TH.  After the hike, we decided to then all head to Steamboat Springs where we grabbed lunch and a drink before heading back to Denver.  Late afternoon on a Sunday on I-70 was horrible as usual from the Tunnels all the way down and through Idaho Springs.