Rocky Mountain National Park - Part I, Moraine Park and Fern Lake

A few weeks ago now, B. and I journeyed north from Boulder to camp in Rocky Mountain National Park. We reached Moraine Park campground in the early afternoon and quickly pitched the tent. The view from the site wasn't bad:

After setting up camp we set off to hike up to Fern Lake from a nearby trail head. Early on in the hike, we came across an unusual section of trail in which a deep layer of fine sand covered the ground, likely a remnant of the massive floods that hit Colorado last September.

Though we missed the aspen peak, there were still a few scattered groves of yellow aspens along the trail.

After 3.8 miles, we made it to Fern Lake, an alpine lake sitting in a glacial basin surrounded by steep walls of stone and ice.

After returning to camp, we cooked a tasty dinner (couscous, tomatoes and sausage... mmmmm), burned a few bundles of wood, then fell asleep catching meteors from the Orionid meteor shower and listening to the ominous cries of elk roaming nearby. As B. put it, elk sound eerily similar to  ringwraiths (listen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20PET6-Hr_c).

The following day, we drove west along the Trail Ridge Rd., which winds its way up to just over 12,000 ft via innumerable switchbacks. Usually, the Trail Ridge Rd is closed by now due to snow and ice, but the Rockies have seen very little precipitation this October and the road was open the whole way across the park. So we drove west, stopping for short hikes and lunch along the way. On the western side of the park, the Trail Ridge Rd. dips down into a valley where the headwaters of the Colorado River hides between pine-covered hills. This far north, the Colorado is a humorously small, trickling brook, and its hard to imagine that it can be the same river that carved out the Grand Canyon.