Mount Yale - 4 Things to Know Before Visiting

This is a popular trail, which is gentle, family friendly grade with amazing destinations. The natural water slide area at Denny Creek is a must visit for families. The trails offer an authentic mountain experience as they go through the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness.

The Avalanche trailhead is a major access point for the Colorado Trail near Buena Vista. This is a popular trailhead for winter recreationists and provides ample parking for the many snowmobilers who converge on the area. Weekend snowmobilers love to ride to the top of Cottonwood Pass and over the Continental Divide to Taylor Park.

The North Cottonwood trail travels west for 4.3 miles to Kroenke Lake. The trail has numerous creek crossing and is lush and green with alpine vegetation. Take advantage of this trail in the peak of summer for wildflower season with July being the best month for the breathtaking flowers.

The Collegiate Peaks Wilderness is a 168,000-acre area located in central Colorado between Leadville and Buena Vista to the east and Aspen to the west and Crested Butte to the southwest. There are numerous alpine creeks in the area's wide valleys and these are all quite marshy. Snow does not usually begin to melt until May or June and it remains year-round in places on some of the high peaks.

Mount Columbia is a high mountain summit of the Collegiate Peaks in the Sawatch Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The 14,077-foot fourteener is located in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness of San Isabel National Forest, 9.9 milesnorthwest by west of the Town of Buena Vista in Chaffee County, Colorado. This trail is great for birding, horseback riding, and mountain biking, and it's unlikely you'll encounter many other people while exploring.

This is an awesome trail that takes hikers all the way from the trailhead off of 306, along Ptarmigan Creek, and out to Ptarmigan Lake. This 6.5-mile round trip hike takes visitors from the trailhead, through the forest, alongside lakes, and finally to the majestic Ptarmigan Lake itself. The trail is spectacular and offers visitors one the best wildflower viewing spots during the month of July.