If you pay attention to the news at all, you should remember Gold Dust Peak. A couple of years ago a fighter jet pilot by the name Craig Button crashed his plane on this mountain, at least the Air Force thinks so. Well, New York Lake sits at the foot of this massive peak.
Gold Dust Peak looms 2,000 vertical feet above this large lake. The lake itself is 40 acres in surface area, which is as big as Evergreen Lake. This is a beautiful lake and there is no easy way to get back to it. New York Mountain surrounds the lake on the west, Gold Dust to the south, and rocky ridges make it hard to get there on the other two sides.
I won't lie to you and say that there was a good trail all the way, because there really isn't a trail. There are some sparatic cairns along the way, but nothing real definite. In a way this adds to the atmosphere because not too many people get back to the lake, which makes it all the more special. The fishing at the lake is good, and never in my life have I seen so many cutthroats, and not just the 10 inch variety, but upwards of 18 inches.
The weather for our backpack could have been better, as it rained most of the afternoon we were there. I did the trip with Rick and Larry, a couple of friends from work, and they had both been here several times. The trail starts a few miles up a rough road from Fulford, south of Eagle. I say rough because the rain had left some serious ruts in the road. You climb up an old 4 wheel drive road for the first 1.5 miles or so, which is the easy part. Easy to follow, but fairly steep. Once on the upper ridges of New York Mountain, the introduction is over. You need to find a spot to descend the mountain to get into the valley which contains the lake. Find a spot that looks easy and descend, but beware of all the cliffs that may loom below. I am not going to tell you the exact spot, because that takes the fun out of it!
Once you are into the valley, we stayed on the west side of the drainage and followed what cairns there were to the lake. The lake appears abruptly and sort of puts you in a trance. You can see from the pictures here that it really is beautiful. Total hiking distance is about 5 miles to the lake. As some friendly words of advise: Know the terrain and carry a compass if you attempt to go here. The trip out is also much harder than the trip in. Just getting to the other side of the mountain from the lake is enough to make you wish you had never descended!