Sept 17
Sept 19
Sept 28
Oct 12
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
What a glorious autumn day!!! We left home about 8 heading for Rocky Mountain National Park and the trailhead to Mill’s Lake. It’s reputed to be the prettiest lake in the park.
The photo on the left above shows some of today's trail through the golden aspens. The center photo shows one of the trail signs - this one was only a tenth of a mile from the trailhead. The photo on the right shows some of the glorious autumn weather we had today.
Trailhead parking for this trail (part of Glacier Gorge Trail) is inadequate. The guidebook we were using said that, since this is a very popular trail, the parking lot fills early and to continue on to the parking lot at Bear Lake, which only adds half a mile to the beginning and end of the day. So, we continued on. Barely a quarter of a mile later, traffic came to a complete halt. After waiting there a while, we decided to drive back to the Park and Ride that’s available during summer months in the park.
So, we turned around (an interesting feat on those narrow mountain roads) and found the parking lot for the Park and Ride, which is the size of a typical grocery store parking lot - very large.
We packed up and headed for the bus that was waiting there, which took off as soon as we boarded. These are nice, clean buses that the Park Service runs during the busy season. I think they run on natural gas instead of diesel. And they are supposed to run about every ten minutes, so they’re very convenient.
After the bus driver made his announcements, which included the fact that there were delays on the route of up to 15 minutes per route, so please be patient, Carl asked him what was going on up the road. They’re clearing some of the trees killed by the pine bark beetles and are working right on the edge of the road. Some of the trees are falling onto the road. So, they close the road for fifteen minutes at a time, work like crazy, clean it up, then open it up until the waiting traffic has cleared. I’m glad they’re clearing the dead trees, just not sure of the timing...
The three photos above were taken along the trail. The photo on the left shows someone's sense of humor. Small rocks had been placed on the larger, cracked one and it reminded me of Cookie Monster! The center photo shows a set of cascades along Glacier Creek. The photo on the right has an aspen leave caught in pine needles, a photo op that I find hard to resist!
Anyway, we soon arrived at the Glacier Gorge Trailhead and most of the people on the bus (it was standing room only) got off there. The trail was a bit crowded at first. We started hiking at 10:45 - a bit later than we had planned. Round trip to the lake and back will be 5.6 miles.
It’s a very interesting trail. It covers a wider variety of terrain than most of the trails we’ve been on. It included several stream crossings, all with bridges of some sort. There were a couple of log bridges and the rest were nice sturdy bridges. One looked very new. We found out later that last year, the trail to Mill’s Lake itself was closed because the bridge had gotten washed out. So, it really was new!
Most of the trail wound through the forest. Some of it was mostly flat. Some of it was steep enough that the trail maintenance people had put in stone or log steps. The forest alternated between evergreens and aspens and the aspens were in full autumn glory!
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Another part of the trail went along the edge of Glacier Gorge, which drops precipitously to Glacier Creek, several feet below. The photo to the left shows this area. Glacier Creek runs along the bottom of this gorge. This is our view of the other side of the gorge. The tree in this photo is probably close to 30 feet tall...
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Another part of the trail clung to the side of a mountain with a steep slope on either side - up on one side, down on the other - and the trail here was very rock strewn. It looked like it had experienced a landslide at some point - very little vegetation there. The three photos above show this section of the trail.
And a couple of sections of the trail went over slick rock! The photo on the left shows a limber pine seemingly growing out of bare rock on one of these stretches. The photo on the right shows me taking the photo on the left.
The trail on these slick sections was marked mostly by cairns, but there was one section, near the lake, when I turned to Carl and asked which way the trail went! Fortunately, someone was coming the other direction just then and it became obvious.
One reason the first part of this trail is so popular is that one of the larger waterfalls in the park, Alberta Falls, is just 0.7 miles from the trailhead. About half the people on the first part of this trail were only going this far.
It’s a pretty waterfall - both of these photos show Alberta Falls.
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We arrived at the lake at 1:15, so we’re still doing our average of one mile per hour! And it is a pretty lake.
The photo on the left shows our first view of Mills Lake over the slick rock trail. This is the section of trail where I couldn't tell which way to go...
The photo on the right shows a closer view of the lake and the small waterfall where Glacier Creek leaves the lake.
After taking several photos, we settled down on a large rock for lunch and a short rest.
The photo on the left shows our lunch site on the edge of the lake.
The photo on the right shows some of the autumn colors reflected in Glacier Creek as it leaves Mills Lake.
Then we hiked back to the trailhead, arriving back there about 4. The bus finally arrived half an hour later and was just as crowded as it had been earlier. On the ride back to the parking lot, we spotted a handful of elk!
On the drive out of the park, traffic slowed a couple of times. The first time, a coyote was slowly crossing the road, then stood in the far lane munching on the vegetation (I think he was eating rose hips). The second slowdown was for a small group of elk. The bull elk was bugling! I’d never heard one before! Sounded like screeching brakes.
The photo on the left is another shot of the steep section of the trail, showing the lovely aspens. The photo on the right is some backlit aspen leaves.
All in all, a fun day. In the future, we will take advantage of the Park and Ride option, if available. However, the service only runs from Memorial Day through October 2, so we won’t be able to ride it any more this year.
There are a number of other trails branching off of the one we took, heading to other lakes in the area and there were a two more lakes above Mill’s Lake on the trail we took. We will definitely be back.