Holy Cross Wilderness Area

Government information and links are at the bottom of this page.

Located in San Isabel and White River National Forests

Neighboring towns: Redcliff, Gilman, Minturn, Vail, Leadville, Twin Lakes, Aspen, Norrie, Meredith, Ruedi, Basalt

The Holy Cross Wilderness lies immediately west of the Continental Divide, just over the ridge from the Arkansas River Valley. Some among Colorado's conservation community call Holy Cross a "water wilderness" - an odd appellation given its rugged peaks more than two miles above sea level. What they refer to, however, are the innumerable pools and cascades of the area's many streams, the dozens of alpine lakes, and the wide expanses of valleys inundated by spring snowmelt. Holy Cross's abundance of water sets the state for one of Colorado's longest running and most bitter conflicts over wilderness versus water development.

The wilderness takes its name from 14,003-foot Mount of the Holy Cross. The famous photographer William H. Jackson embellished the peak's reputation by doctoring his 19th-century photographs of the perpendicular snow-filled gullies, or couloirs, on the mountain's east face. Jackson's additional white touches enhanced the already strong resemblance of these couloirs to a cross and drew countless thousands of pilgrims in subsequent years. This fourteener is by no means the only high peak in the northernmost extension of the Sawatch Range; more than twenty-five peaks over 13,000 feet in elevation dot the wilderness.

Holy Cross represents the archetypical Colorado wilderness area - soaring ridges and peaks built of 1.7 billion-year-old schist and gneiss tower over immense, U-shaped glacial-carved valleys whose headwaters contain placid emerald lakes. The streams run full of fish, and the area's remote valleys offer refuge for deer, elk and a multitude of other solitude-loving creatures, such as black bear, bobcat and lynx. In fall, hikers sniff crisp air foretelling of winter and shuffle through leaves fallen from the ubiquitous aspen groves, blazing golden amidst dark forests of spruce and fir.

Size: 122,797 acres

Elevation: 8,000 to 14,003 feet

Miles of trails: 164

Year designated: 1980

Hunting areas: 44, 45, 444, 48

NOTE: Eloquent descriptions of our wilderness areas provided by Mark Pearson, author of "The Complete Guide to Colorado's Wilderness Areas", Westcliffe Publishers, Englewood, CO. The book also contains many beautiful pictures by renowned photographer and Colorado resident John Fielder.