Hessie Trailhead

Hessie Trailhead, 9,009 feet (MODERATE)

Named for Hessie Davis, postmistress of the town of Hessie

Getting to the trailhead: From downtown Nederland, drive south on Highway 72 for 0.5 miles, then turn right onto County Road 130. You’ll see a sign for the Eldora Ski Resort at this junction. Drive through the quiet tiny town of Eldora (be sure to obey their speed limit signs!) and park along the gravel road at the trailhead. This is a very popular trailhead; on summer weekends, locals in orange vests will turn cars away after 8 or 9 in the morning. However, there is a great free local shuttle that runs people from Nederland to the trailhead.

Roundtrip distance from the trailhead to the closest lakes: 4 miles RT to Lost Lake; 9.8 miles RT to Jasper Lake; 12.2 miles RT to King Lake; 9.8 miles RT to Diamond Lake

Elevation gain: This depends on how far you would like to venture into the Indian Peaks Wilderness! The elevation gain to Lost Lake is 830 feet. It is 1,942 feet to Jasper Lake.

Map: [to be included]

How to hike from Hessie Trailhead: 

1.  From your parked car or the shuttle drop-off, walk down the obvious gravel road marked “Hessie Trail.” Be sure to note the remains of the little town of Hessie along the way. In the spring and early summer, much of the first half mile of the gravel road floods, but an alternative trail with boardwalks has been built through the woods. 

2. All the trails in this part of Indian Peaks Wilderness are well-marked. The hike to Lost Lake is a quick one, up the old mining road, then a left turn onto a solid bridge over the impressive tumbling Jasper Creek. Lost Lake is a blue gem ringed with lovely mountains -- a perfect place for a picnic (or camping, though note the Wilderness Area regulations). This is officially the end of the Hessie Trail, but it is very difficult to stop at Lost Lake, particularly on a beautiful blue-sky day, when the map shows the Devil’s Thumb trail beckoning upwards. The June day I hiked to Jasper Lake, my dog and I encountered only a few other people -- and snowdrifts to my hips. It was glorious.

On the search for Hessie Davis:

This has been a trail guide for peaks and lakes named for women so far, but I couldn’t help including the Hessie Trail -- and Hessie herself, partly because this trail is a popular entrance to some of Colorado’s most beautiful wilderness, but also because this area preserves the ghostly whispers of a rollicking mining era in the region. Hessie Davis, postmistress of the mining town her husband J.H. Davis named for her, would have known all the gossip and drama that rippled through the area like the telluride gold in the rock.

Early in the morning on a weekday, the Hessie Trail is so quiet, it is difficult to imagine the town of Hessie in 1898, when frantic fortune seekers streamed into Eldora in search of the newly discovered gold ore. Eldora grew to over 1000 people, and the hopeful miners camped in the surrounding area. I’ve always thought the smartest people in these ore boom areas were the ones who sought to profit from the desperate miners (see Clara Brown’s story in the Clara Brown Hill chapter). J.H. Davis was one of those entrepreneurs: he built a lumber mill and founded a town, naming it after his wife. However, the prospectors ultimately discovered very little gold, and the boom fizzled. By 1905, the town of Hessie was deserted. Today, a hiker can see only collapsing structures, sprouting with aspens and monkshood. 

Again, though, the official sources do not satisfy my curiosity. Who was Hessie? What happened to her? Where did she and J.H. go after the boom? The interest in the area led to tourism in the small town of Nederland, which thrives today. Did they settle there? 

I learned from the Historicorps, which is an organization working to preserve the Hessie Cabin, that Hessie Davis single handedly started a postal facility in the new settlement, and that the miners -- not her husband -- wanted to name the town for her to honor her. Likely, Hessie, like other settlers in the area, grew potatoes, radishes, carrots, and peas, though not much else would grow at 8,600 feet. Unfortunately, her husband’s dream to profit from a lumber mill failed when a forest fire swept through the mountains in 1899. 

Then what? According to the 1972 book Colorado Ghost Towns, a Mr. Wilson Davis -- living at the time with his wife in Hessie -- was arrested for the planned murder by dynamite of a fish and game warden in 1914. Was this the son of J.H. and Hessie? I can’t find confirmation. Mr. Davis was released, along with two brothers named Smalley, because there was not enough evidence. The murder remains unsolved.

But back to Hessie. In source after source, I could find nothing beyond the oft-repeated sentence “she quickly made herself indispensable as postmistress” of the new town of Hessie. Then finally, on Ancestry.com, I found a 1900 U.S. Census record: Hessie A. McBurney Davis, born April 8, 1849, in Ireland, lived in Boulder County in 1900, at age 51. I found a marriage record from Virginia (though it shows her marrying a Wilson E. Davis -- did J.H. go by a different name, or is this the wrong record?). I found a death record that showed she died in Los Angeles County on May 29, 1942, at the age of 93. 

My favorite record? The one that reveals the most about the mysterious Hessie? She registered to vote in 1920 in California, the moment it became legal for women to do so. I like thinking about 71-year-old Hessie, once the postmistress of a tiny town of thirty people in the Colorado mountains, striding out to vote for the first time in a presidential election in California.