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Has anyone been up the Brainard lake road to either the Long lake or Mitchell lake trailhead lately? I'm hoping to bike up it tomorrow, but only if it's not too covered in snow.

So - did you, and if so what did you find?

My guess is that quite a bit of the road is still snow-covered. But that’s just a guess, based a bit on what is visible higher on the slopes as seen from Broomfield.

We ended up changing plans. We decided it was safer to give the road a few more weeks to make sure it was melted out.

Jorgito wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2024 1:22 pm We ended up changing plans. We decided it was safer to give the road a few more weeks to make sure it was melted out.

opensnow is showing that the lake itself is buried under 4' of snow and expecting another foot this week.

From my experience the road isn't really bikeable until late May, even then there are a number of large snow drifts that are slow to melt (or will be plowed before melting) so progress will be dependent on your willingness to push a bike up and over countless drifts. You can cut off a mile or two on bike before hitting drifts, however.

I biked it 5/15/2022 on a Sunday afternoon whim. Had to walk it through I think two substantial snow areas, and maybe plow through a couple smaller drifts, but enough pavement to enjoy. There was quite a bit less snow up on the peaks than you see up there right now. IIRC, 2022 was a lighter snow winter than the current one.

I have the same question- wondering if anyone has been up the Brainard Lake road recently. I'm going up Friday with a group. The last conditions report I saw was from May 2 (the road was snow-covered and skis or snowshoes recommended).

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