Devil's Garden

We hiked the Devil's Garden loop in Arches National Park on October 17, 2009.  We camped in Moab, and then explored the park.  The hike was fairly easy, but some of the sandy parts were hard to hike through.  The arches were beautiful, and it was a very nice day for a hike.  The loop was about 7.5 miles overall.

Longs Peak

We hiked Longs Peak in RMNP from the Longs Peak Trailhead on August 10, 2009.  This was our big goal for the summer and our first fourteener, and had been planning for it for quite some time.  We started our hike at 2 in the morning, since we knew it would be a long one that needed adequate time.  It was dark for the first few hours until the sun came up around 5 AM.  the sunrise was beautiful, and by this point we had made it about 5 miles in, not quite to the Boulderfield.  We got to the Boulderfield, which was 5.9 miles from the trailhead, and we looked up towards the Keyhole, which was 6.2 miles away from the trailhead.  That .3 of a mile was killer.  Hiking over huge boulders is hard on your legs, so by the time we got to The Keyhole, we were already exhausted.  We looked on the other side to see what was left to get to the summit, and decided that we were much too tired to safely attempt the remaining mile.  We hiked 13 miles that day, with a 3750 foot incline.  It was a very difficult hike.  On the way down, we were amazed to see the same lady from Philadelphia that we had seen on Flattop, so we stopped and said hello, and chatted for a few moments and were back on our way down.  Maybe someday, we will go back and summit the peak, but we will try some easier fourteeners until that time comes.

Flattop Mountain

We hiked Flattop Mountain in RMNP from the Bear Lake Trailhead on August 7, 2009.  This was our pre-hike to our big hiking goal of the season, which was Longs Peak.  This hike was 8.8 miles with an incline of 2849 feet.  It was very windy once we got up past the trees, and it became very hard to move forward.  We made it to the top, and the summit was very flat (hence the name).  There wasn't really much to see so we headed back down.  On the way up we had passed a lady who had to have been well into her 60s or so, and we again passed her on the way down.  We stopped to chat with her, and tell her she was almost up to the summit, and learned that she was from Philadelphia (originally from Germany) and every summer came to Colorado to hike in the Rocky Mountains. When I am that age, I want to be able to hike like that.  It was a good motivator.

Timberline Falls

We hiked Timberline Falls in RMNP from the Bear Lake Trailhead on July 30, 2009.  This hike was 9 miles roundtrip with about a 1500 foot incline.  It was a very foggy day, so it was hard to enjoy the scenery, but the parts we were able to see were beautiful.  We planned on hiking up to Sky Pond which was about another mile after the falls, but the hike up the falls looked a bit too steep and treacherous for us, so we decided against it.  On a day with better weather, we plan to do this hike again and make it up to the pond.

Deer Mountain

After a month of not having hiked, we decided to start off slow with Deer Mountain in RMNP from the Deer Mountain Trailhead.  This was a 6 mile hike with a 1083 foot incline.  This was a really fun hike, and was fairly easy, with the most difficult part being the last half mile up to the summit.  While we were at the top, there were some very human-friendly chipmunks who had probably been fed too much human food.  One of them climbed into our bag looking for something to snack on.  Anyways, the view from the top was great, and overall it was a good hike to start out with again.

Odessa Lake

We hiked Odessa lake in RMNP from the Bear Lake Trailhead on June 26, 2009.  This was an 8 mile hike roundtrip with a 1215 foot incline.  On the way up we passed Lake Helene and Columbine Falls.  We had a nice view of Flattop Mountain as well.  Getting from Lake Helene to Odessa Lake was pretty tricky because the snowbanks were massive, and we had to carefully traverse them in order to get over parts of the trail.  By the time we started back down, it was raining pretty hard.  On the homestretch back towards the trailhead, we saw a tree that had been struck by lightning...while we were on trail.  We started moving a little quicker at this point, and made it safely back to the car.

Estes Cone

We hiked Storm Pass and Estes Cone in RMNP from the Storm Pass Trailhead on June 16, 2009.  We renamed this hike the "hell hike."  Everything was fine until we got to the sign shown below which said that Estes Cone was only .7 mile away.  Initially, we only planned to hike Storm Pass, but got to this sign and thought, "Hey, it's only .7 of a mile, we might as well do it."  Little did we know...That last part was a whole bunch of boulders and rocks, and we felt like we were hiking straight up. Well the hike to the end of Storm Pass was only a 840 foot incline in 4 miles.  That last little bit up to the top of Estes Cone was an additional 1300 foot incline.  In less than a mile.  This made for a grand total of 10 miles roundtrip and a 2023 foot incline.  Nonetheless, we had fun, but were quite exhausted when we were done.

The Pool

We hiked Cub Lake and the Pool in RMNP starting at the Cub Lake Trailhead on June 12, 2009.  We looped around to The Pool and the Fern Lake Trailhead.  This was a 6.2 mile hike with about a 500 foot incline.  Overall the loop was pretty easy, no steep inclines to speak of.  The Pool was very pretty with high waters in the Big Thompson River.  It was a pretty nice day, and the hike was good.  Saw a lot of kids at the pool, and I think it would be a good family hike.

Emerald Lake

We hiked Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park from the Bear Lake Trailhead on June 1, 2009.  It was our first hike of the summer, so we kept it short. It was 3.6 miles round trip with a 685 foot incline.  It was super snowy still and it started raining on us on the way down. When we were getting close to the lake, I stepped in what I thought was a footprint which was actually a whole into an underlying stream, and my entire leg was soaked, but that just added to the experience!  Overall, it was a good first hike of the season, and other than the snow, it was pretty painless.  On the way up there are two additional lakes: Nymph Lake and Dream Lake, which would make for good hikes with the family as well.