St. Mary’s Glacier

Written By Levi Hefner

Standing at the shore of St. Mary’s Lake. Notice the people hiking up on the right side of the photo?

For more information on the peak and the trail, check out these resources:

St. Mary’s Glacier is often listed as one of the best Colorado winter hikes, so when a friend of mine invited me along for a hike I couldn’t say no. He recommended we rent some snowshoes to bring along just in case. I had never snowshoed before, but the folks at REI were very helpful and made renting a set quick and painless. Spoiler alert: I enjoyed snowshoeing so much on this trip that I went ahead and bought a pair for myself.

This hike is commonly on the top of various “best winter hikes” lists and for good reason. The trailhead is easy to get to and the trail is well marked. And unless you get there immediately after new snow, the trail will be broken in by others. The trail was busy, but not crowded the day we hiked it.

Hiking up past the lake is pretty steep, and on this day it was also very windy! Lots of people were standing with their back to the wind waiting for breaks to continue making progress. Unfortunately the breaks were few and far between. I pushed forward regardless of the blowing snow. I’d later regret this. Windburn is a bitch. Lesson learned.

On the way back down, we met a guy ice fishing. He had caught a few small trout in just an hour. He had a pretty sweet drill setup to get through the ice as it was probably about a foot thick.

Levi Hefner