Brief by Allen Best
Geography – February 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Central Colorado can boast of the highest mountains in Colorado — Elbert, Massive, and Harvard are 1, 2, and 3 — but the highest lake is apparently in Summit County.
It might even be the highest lake in the United States, according to Carl Drews of Breckenridge. Nowhere can he find evidence of a lake at a higher elevation than one at 13,420 feet near Breckenridge that he proposes to call Pacific Tarn.
In Washington state he did find a Lake Muriel, the unofficial name of a subterranean pool of water within the summit crater of Mt. Rainier. But it is too small and too temporary to deserve being called a lake, he says. Besides, the U.S. Board of Geographic Names doesn’t recognize it as a lake.
Although it’s reasonable to assume that if global warming continues, a higher lake may someday exist in Alaska, probably on Mount Wrangell, any moisture at such an elevation would now be frozen year round.
Drews is a pathfinder in an obscure niche. While all the summits have been ascended and their trails well documented, apparently no one has set out to document high mountain lakes. Also, he is intrigued by the stories the lakes tell.
“After climbing 49 fourteeners in Colorado I’ve found that the tall summits offer a great view, but are pretty much places of just rock and snow,” he says.
“The lakes have water, and life, way up in the mountains! There are little microbes and other bugs as large as insects in the water, and usually some interesting plants nearby. The life-supporting properties of high lakes are a new realization for me after many years of hiking.”
