The first day we did a hike to Chasm falls. The hike is about 2 miles round trip, with a gain in elevation upto 500ft. The falls at the end of the hike is worth every bit of calorie you spend to get up there. We had lunch at the Endovalley picnic area and headed back to simple trails for the rest of the day. This was the really nice part of this park. There are hikes for people of all kinds. You could choose from a easy trail with absolutely no elevation around lakes, to others that climb up in elevation so fast, even before you know you are up 1000ft from where you started! Whatever may be your choice you are never disappointed. We experienced some really breathtaking views of the Rockies!
The second day we wanted to take the road called the 'Old Ridge Trail' that is the highest paved road in the US that goes upto 12,100ft. It is a 48 miles two-way road which run across the E-W, W-E sides of the park. This road is open only during the summer months and luckily for us, the road was opened about 2 days before Memorial day this year. All along this road are some fine vista points which offer some of the best shots for photography!
As the road climbed up we could clearly see the tree line. At about 11,500 ft. trees stop growing because of the extreme climate and you could clearly notice the tree line! At one point we were looking down on the trees, and looking at the mountains eye to eye. The day before, it had snowed in the mountains and the snow had been cleared off the road but the sides of the roads were still filled them and it added to the experience! We stopped by at several places to get a different perspective of how things are when you look from 'up' there!
We saw glaciers along our way and the headwaters of the river 'La Poudre'. The river Thompson starts in the rockies and so does the grand Colorado! I wish I could retake geography lessons that I took back in school, now that I have a better visual idea! I have read about Alpine(also Tundra region) - but now I know exactly. The only other places that you could experience this is Alaska and Siberia! Isn't that chilling ;) The Subalpine area of the park was the green belt and that's mainly the meadows and the forests. One of the popular points of intest was the Continental Divide - the rivers that originate to the east of this flow into the Atlantic and those to the west flow into the Pacific, the natural physical barriers running N-S! It was a great feeling to be standing ON the Continental Divide, and oh ya....we took pictures of it!
The third day we did 2 hikes. We started at the Bear Lake trailhead on the West side of the park. This one has a lot of trailheads starting from there. We took the one to Dream Lake, but we had to stop soon after Nymph Lake b'cos the trail after a point was totally filled in ice, and we weren't prepared for it. Nymph Lake at a height of about 10,500 was picture perfect, exacty like the ones you would imagine when you think of lakes in a lush green forest. Surrounded by tall trees , the snow from the mountains feed the lake and the water is clear with water lilies and barks of trees floating on it. The perfect place to unwind!
Since we couldn't go up to Dream Lake and we had most of the day still left, we took the hike to Mills Lake. This was a 3 mile one way, with an elevation gain of upto 750ft. At 10000 ft, the air is thinner, the clouds seem to move much faster and the sound of aeroplanes is so much louder! It is a totally different world out there! It took us about 3hrs for this hike. En route to Mills Lake is Alberta Falls. This is a nice place to sit on the rocks, relax, and watch the falls. It gets tougher after this upto Mills Lake. We reached Bear Lake(close to the trailhead from where we started), which is yet another beautiful lake.
We drove back to Denver that evening. Hung around Denver downtown, in and around Larimer and Writer Square, treated ourselves after all the 'hard work' to dinner at a modern Mexican restaurant, Tamayo! If you happen to be there, check this one out. Though they didn't have too many veg. options, their menu didn't seem anything like the Mexican restaurants that I have been before...its not the regular Enchilada, Quesadilla, Fajita, kinda Mexican restaurant...so different, that I don't even remember the name of the dish that I had! We took the next day early morning flight to SFO. This trip felt like a quick trip to the Tundra and back...like M calls it...'a shot of Tundra'!
And yes, we saw some wildlife too...bighorn sheep and elk. We also spotted a coyote with its cubs on binoculars that were set up by rangers at the meadows.
Tip: If you are looking at flying to Colorado try Frontier - We got a really good deal on our tickets. 200/person - round trip! Check it out!
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