For the past couple of years, Kathy and I have looked forward to our kids going away to their respective camps for a couple weeks, mostly because of the experiences they'll get to have (of course), but a teeny tiny little bit of that anticipation stems from the ability now to do some longer hikes in which we don't have to worry about being back at any particular time or that the kids aren't burning the house down. This year was no different, and we had planned hikes for every day of the week, many of them over 15 miles in length. While I really enjoy the challenge and views inherent in climbing Colorado's tallest mountains, I also enjoy the tranquility and scenery associated with the thousands of non-summiting trails here. The week of July 11, 2016, we would embark on many such hikes.
We had intended to hike tails across the northern front range, but as a result of the Cold Springs fire, we decided against hiking from the Hessie/4th of July area near Nederland. Additionally, due to the realization that our bodies can no longer hike miles and miles...and miles..and more miles without taking a toll on them, so we scaled back a little when we needed to. Or at least that was our intention, as it didn't always work out that way. Consequently, most of our hikes ended up around the Rocky Mountain National Park / Estes Park area.
In the end, we ended up hiking just over 66 miles with a total elevation gain of about 15,500 feet. We saw nearly a dozen lakes, many waterfalls, beautiful mountain peaks, wildlife, and even a historical site. This is a brief recap of the highlights from each of these hikes.
Our first hike destination was a last minute decision. Kathy wasn't feeling great that weekend, so we wanted to start with something that was a little shorter and decided on Bridal Veil Falls at Lumpy Ridge in Estes Park. This would be ~7 miles roundtrip and a good warmup for the big week ahead. Fortunately (I think), when early Monday rolled around and we headed out, she was feeling much better, so we decided to have a go at the much longer Lumpy Ridge loop and hit BVF on the way. And so we did. The rock formations were very cool, BVF was a beautiful waterfall, and Gem Lake was absolutely gorgeous. It ended up being a very hot, tiring hike, but we survived and saw some amazing things we hadn't ever seen before.
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| Rock formation at the start of the hike |
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| Bridal Veil Falls |
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| Gem Lake |
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| View of the RMNP peaks |
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| Paul Bunyan's boot |
After our first day, we were sore and tired and too chicken to try for another long hike the next day. It was already time for a recovery day. There are a lot of trails in RMNP we've never explored, so we planned a short hike to Fern Lake, again maybe 7-8 miles round trip. If we felt good, we would go another mile or so to Spruce Lake.
Turns out we felt REALLY good. After getting off trail on our way to Spruce Lake and doing some bush whacking with our trusty GPS, we continued on after Fern and Spruce Lake to Odessa Lake. At Odessa, we decided we felt so good we would attempt to do the complete loop around Mt. Wuh, about 16 total miles. We hiked up to Lake Helene, down past the junction near Bear Lake, down even further to skirt above Cub Lake, then back to "The Pool" and finally back to our car. A "short recovery hike" turned into a monster 16+ mile, 8 1/2 hour adventure. And it was completely worth it.
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| Fern Lake (Notchtop, Little Matterhorn, Gabletop) |
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| Spruce Lake (unnamed peak, Stones, Stapps) |
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| Approach to Odessa Lake |
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| Odessa Lake (Flattop, Notchtop, Little Matterhorn) |
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| At Odessa Lake |
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| Notchtop Mountain near Lake Helene |
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| Lake Helene (Flattop) |
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| Valley view of Odessa Lake from Lake Helene |
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| Cub Lake |
OK, for real this time. We had hiked 30 miles with nearly 8,000 feet of elevation gain in two days and by day 3 we were shot. Neither of us had ever done any of the hikes on the back side of Trail Ridge Road, and we were able to find a hike to the Lulu City site (a mining community in the 1880s) from the Colorado River trail head that didn't offer any "it is only another mile to _____" options in case we really did get to feeling good and were again tempted to stretch our hike out a bit. This trail was at the foot of the Never Summer Mountains and followed along the early stretch of the Colorado River. It was pretty flat and offered a nice place to relax in some rapids at the old mining site. On the way back, we stopped at many of the Trail Ridge Road pullouts to see the views we've generally just driven by in the past.
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| Colorado River bridge near the TH |
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| River selfie |
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| Colorado River at Lulu City |
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| Never Summer Mountains from Trail Ridge Rd |
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| On Trail Ridge Rd looking down toward Granby |
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| Forest Canyon looking south towards Longs Peak from Trail Ridge Rd |
Of all the hikes on my list for the week, Lawn Lake and Crystal Lakes was the one I was most looking forward to. I can see the peaks north of RMNP (Chapin, Chiquita, Ypsilon, Fairchild, Hagues and Mummy) every day but have never spent any time hiking in that area. Lawn Lake is right at the base of Mummy Mountain and Crystal Lakes are at the base of Fairchild. It is a long hike but I really wanted to see this area. Our 4th day in, fresh off a recovery day, would be the perfect time for this one.
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| Damage from the Roaring River flood from 1982 |
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| Mummy Mountain |
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| Lawn Lake (UN 12591, UN 12884, Fairchild) |
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| "The Saddle" beyond Lawn Lake |
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| Lawn Lake selfie |
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| Approach to Crystal Lakes |
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| Lawn Lake from below Crystal Lakes |
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| Crystal Lake outlet |
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| Little Crystal Lake |
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| Crystal Lake (Fairchild Mountain) |
Another area I was very interested in exploring was the valley behind Longs Peak, and I had set my sights on Frozen Lake from the Glacier Gorge TH in RMNP. We had a hard time deadline that day, though, to go see Aaron after his first week of camp, so we scaled back our hike shortly and went as far as Black Lake, which is probably a half mile below Frozen Lake. Along the way we would pass by Mills Lake and Jewell Lake, and we would see Ribbon Falls all from the shadow of Longs Peak. It whet my appetite to go further into Glacier Gorge, but it was still a very pretty hike.
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| Mills Lake |
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| Gem Lake |
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| Microburst area past Mills Lake |
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| Ribbon Falls |
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| Selfie at Black Lake |
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| Black Lake (McHenrys Peak) |
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| Jewell Lake (Longs Peak, Pagoda, Spearhead, Chiefs Head) |
We had hiked for 5 days straight, and our week was drawing to a close. We intended to do a short hike Saturday morning in my favorite hiking area, Brainard Lake, however I misunderestimated the amount of gas in my tank that morning and realized that we could probably get TO Brainard Lake, but likely not back from it. We instead made our way back down the valley to Boulder to fill up and decided we should just do a "cool down" hike in the lower elevation to end our week. Left Hand Valley Res was a new one for both of us, so we headed there. A short, flat hike with no packs felt so incredibly good after lugging them up and down the mountains all week. No pictures from this one. It was a bit muddy, we saw several mountain bikers on the trail, and we were within sight of civilization the entire time. A scenic hike it was not, but it made for a very relaxing walk that gave us the opportunity to reflect on everything we'd gotten to see that week and just how far we had hiked that week. I am glad we got the opportunity to explore so much of RMNP, and I eagerly await the opportunities to continue exploring more trails in the foothills.
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