Hiking Fern Lake Trail in
Rocky Mountain National Park CO (2011)
The contemporary phenomenon
of “meetups” – a powerful way for people with like-minded interests to get
together to enjoy their interest – has been quite useful for a newcomer like me
to experience excellent hiking opportunities I am, as a newcomer, mostly
unaware of in my new locale. I also enjoy the way “meetups” allow me to meet
and nurture new friendships in my new town.
On this particular weekend,
I have a friend visiting from Geneva Switzerland. I had promised to take him on
a nice hike, and decided that the best way to find such a hike (and to catch a
ride – since neither of us had a car) was to sign up with the local “Grey
Wolves” meetup for their hike planned for the weekend.
The hike scheduled is for
Fern Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. I have previously done quite a few
hikes at RMNP, but had not yet been to Fern Lake.
To be honest, I was not
expecting much. “Fern Lake,” frankly, does not evoke images of grand waterfalls
and soaring mountains.
There are eight of us in
our group, and we start off from the trail head at about 9:30 am. Not expecting
much, I am not surprised by the unremarkable trail in its first mile. The trail
starts off quite wide, smooth and level in a forest setting.
Soon, however, we have a
roaring creek beside us. It is the Big Thompson River, which is raging due to
the spring/summer runoff of snowmelt from the mountains. This is the same river
that inundated Boulder with its largest flood several decades ago.
On our other side loom
quite tall, steep canyon walls, and very large boulders and tallus fields. We
are a bit too early for a full showing of wildflowers, but the early flowers
give us a wonderful view.
The trail crosses back and
forth from one side to the other of the Big Thompson. We find ourselves
regularly encountering rapids and big waves on the river. Soon, we arrive at
“The Pool,” which is an extremely impressive constriction of the river as it
snakes through narrow rock walls, sending a boiling, foamy froth of
fast-moving, deep water down its channel.
For the second half of our
hike to Fern Lake, the trail begins to rise to the point where there is a
steady, somewhat steep and rocky incline for most of the second half of the
hike to Fern Lake. We enjoy wonderful vista views of hills and mountains off in
the distance. The relatively loud roar we now hear announces to us that we are
approaching Fern Falls, which today is a strong, powerful, misting falls.
We arrive at Fern Lake,
which even on this late June date, is surrounded by deep snow mounds. The lake
is highly photogenic, as it is framed by quite large, snow-capped mountains off
in the distance to its west and north – and very close to the continental
divide. These lake-framing mountains include Little Matterhorn, The Gable, Notchtop,
Knobtop, and Castle Rock.
On our drive back, as we
drive along the Big Thompson River in Estes Park, we are treated to a group of
three deer which are someone seemingly causually wading across the rampaging
Big Thompson. Who knew deer were so agile in strong river water?
The elevation gain from the
trail head to Fern Lake is 1,380 feet. Roundtrip distance is 7.6 miles.
This link shows a photo movie of our hike: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCShl_8s2g8
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