Sept 17
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Oct 12
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
We headed back to Rocky Mountain National Park with a plan A and a plan B. It was a good thing, too...
Our first stop was the Visitor’s Center where we asked about the trail conditions for two particular trails. Well, the park ranger’s information was straight off the web site, which I had checked before leaving home... However, he pointed out that the vistas on our first choice trail were more panoramic and dramatic than on our second choice, so we headed for Bear Lake.
We had planned to hike from Bear Lake, past two other lakes to Emerald Lake, then take a side trip to Lake Haiyaha before returning to the parking lot. Well, when we finally arrived at the parking lot, the car thermometer said it was 36 outside. Neither of us had packed gloves or hats that covered our ears... We stayed long enough to put on the layers we had brought along and get hit by the brisk wind that was blowing. We got right back into the car and headed for plan B...
We dropped back down the mountain to the trailhead for Fern Falls. The trailhead was 1200 feet lower in elevation, 11 degrees warmer, and the trail was mostly through the trees, hence it was sheltered from most of the wind.
It was a pretty hike, mostly following the banks of Big Thompson River and mostly in the woods. The aspen were almost finished, however, so it could have been prettier. We spotted many ferns along the trail, which contribute to the name...
About a mile down the trail, there were a bunch of squared off boulders scattered near the trail. They looked like a giant had been playing with blocks and left his toys scattered all over the place! One set formed a narrow place in the trail. According to the book, this is called Arch Rocks, even though there’s no actual arch there. It’s difficult to convey the sheer size of these massive blocks of rock that towered over our heads! The photo to the left shows a sun flare around Arch Rocks and the photo on the right shows the rocks making up Arch Rocks.
At the 1.7 mile mark, we crossed the river at a place called The Pool, a deep pool of water formed by the rocks here. The photo on the left shows The Pool and the photo on the right shows me taking this photo!
Just past the bridge, we saw a confusing pair of signs. They seemed to imply that two different trails took the same general path. There was no other trail readily apparent and, I knew from looking at the map, that the two trails split somewhere along in here. I should have consulted the map the first time we hit this landmark....
We continued along the most obvious trail, which immediately headed into a steady uphill (up until now, the trail has been mostly flat). As we walked, I kept getting this feeling that I had missed something. We had gone almost a mile when the feeling got really strong and I pulled the map back out. The trails split at The Pool.... We were on the 1.2 mile trail connecting The Pool to Cub Lake!
The three photos above were taken on this little side trip... The photo on the left shows a line of aspen snaking its way down a mountainside. The center photo is looking almost straight up at the aspen against the brilliant blue sky. The photo on the right shows me taking the center photo...
So, we turned around and returned to The Pool.... Here, we took a closer look at the signs and noticed a set of rock steps cut into the side of the trail. Yup. That was our trail... I swear, I didn’t see that the first time through! About half a mile later, another couple passed us. They had made the exact same mistake (it’s an easy one), but had gone all the way to Cub Lake so that they would have an accurate estimate of just how far they had walked...
The mile between The Pool and Fern Falls was also a fairly steady uphill trek. At one point, we were walking along a steep ridge and could hear rapidly falling water on both sides of us. The photo to the left shows the cascade that was to the right side of the trail.
We finally arrived at Fern Falls (photo on the right), which is a pretty waterfall. Here, we had lunch. And my camera started acting up! The vibration reduction lens started vibrating like crazy every time I’d press the shutter button to engage the autofocus. Looking through the viewfinder made me dizzy! The only way I could take a picture was to turn all the automatics off on the lens, turn the camera itself off and back on, and focus manually! What’s going on?
After lunch, we headed back to the trailhead, downhill all the way.
We had hiked almost two miles more than we planned, but it was a good day, all in all. Except for the camera... Of course, the next day, when I spent some time trying to troubleshoot the lens problem, it refused to misbehave... It’s behaving itself again. Frustrating!
Later postscript - the lens behaves indoors, but not out in the cold temperatures we've been having this winter. It acts like it's shivering... I talked with another photographer at Breckenridge when we went to the snow sculptures and his brand new lens does exactly the same thing! Cold has never bothered this lens before, but this year it did. So, I'll be shooting in manual and without the VR until the weather warms up...