(Yes, we are a few days behind on blog posting - we've been hiking so much that there hasn't been time to go through photos! 😀)
So Day 1 in the Rocky Mountain NP - let's call this Lake Day. We began thinking, "Let's have an easier day, just a few miles." Well, that turned into about 12 miles (and 7.5 hours) since we just kept going and going!
We started in the Bear Lake area and hiked about 1/2 mile to Nymph Lake:
Then another 1/2 mile past Nymph Lake is Dream Lake:
About 3/4 of a mile past Dream Lake is Emerald Lake:
The trail ends here, so we went back the way we came, turning a bit south at Dream Lake to hike 1.1 miles to Haiyaha Lake:
Just a cool tree - probably a few hundred years old - no exaggeration.
This was our intended stop for the day, but we were so enamored with the scenery and enjoying the hike so much, that we decided to continue on to some more lakes in the area. From Lake Haiyaha, we hiked 3.6 miles to The Loch:
(Not The Loch - just an unnamed lake along the route.....)
We were minding our own business as we walked along the trail, when an elk walked right in front of us:
We let her take her time passing in front of us, then then continued onto The Loch:
Here we are!
We continued towards Sky Pond, but decided not to hike up the waterfall to Sky Pond - yes, you climb up a flowing waterfall. If it had been earlier in the day without so much run-off, we may have tried it, but it was about 2pm by this time and the water (which comes from a melting glacier and it was a hot day) was pretty strong (and cold). (You climb up the right side of the water in this photo.)
We were rewarded for our decision, as we were hiking back to Glacier Gorge, we saw this elk. (We actually passed him lying down earlier in the day - he was in tall grass and we could only see his antlers, but now he was up-and-about.)
Then it was 4.6 miles to Glacier Gorge...
Past Alberta Falls....
So it was a great hiking day with lots of wonderful scenery! We hiked by four different elk along the way, which was also cool. Our highest altitude of the day:
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