Silver Dollar Lake Trail

The Silver Dollar Lake Trail is outside Georgetown, on the Forest Service’s Clear Creek Ranger District up the Guanella Pass road; Clear Creek County’s Guanella Pass page puts the Naylor Lake and Silver Dollar Lake trails about 11 miles up from Georgetown. The Forest Service describes trail #79 as a short hike whose thin air and occasional steepness may be challenging: it climbs west above Naylor Lake, which is on private property, to Silver Dollar Lake and then on to Murray Lake, both above treeline, at an elevation of about 12,200 feet. Dogs must be on a hand-held leash, and the Forest Service lists hiking, backpacking and horseback riding.

Getting there, from the Forest Service: a small parking area just south of Guanella Pass Campground and north of the pass, or a further quarter mile up a four-wheel-drive road to a second lot where the trail starts. Between the week after Thanksgiving and Memorial Day weekend the county closes the pass road at the Naylor Lake intersection, 0.8 miles below the summit, and keeps a parking lot at the gate for snowshoeing and skiing toward Naylor and Silver Dollar lakes. The Forest Service’s Guanella Pass order covers all national forest land within a quarter mile of the pass road and of the Silver Dollar Lake Road (formerly the Naylor Lake Road).

Facts from the Forest Service’s Silver Dollar Lake Trail page (last updated 28 August 2026) and Guanella Pass alert, and from Clear Creek County’s Guanella Pass Information page (https://www.clearcreekcounty.us/689/Guanella-Pass-Information), read 10 October 2026.