When Sarah McLachlan announced the tour for the 30th anniversary of her album, Fumbling Toward Ecstasy, I knew that I was going, as that was the soundtrack to my college years. The only question was where? We originally considered going to one of the shows in Seattle, WA and exploring some of the National Parks in the Pacific Northwest, but we ultimately decided to go to Denver, CO for her show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Friday night and then spend the rest of the weekend hiking at Rocky Mountain National Park.
So, we flew into Denver on Thursday evening and drove up to Evergreen to stay the night with our fellow adventurer friends from our trip to Africa in 2022, Greg and Angie, in their beautiful guest apartment over the barn with a spectacular view of Mt. Evans.
Kurt worked remotely on Friday, while I enjoyed a short run from the house in the morning. He was able to get in a short run of his own in the afternoon via an introduction to burro running with Angie and her two donkeys, Olive and Grace. The question of the day was who would win the battle of wills…Kurt or his donkey?
We were treated to delicious meals and wonderful hospitality during our stay, and ultimately, we would have loved to stay with them for longer. But, the concert and the mountains were calling, so we had to go on Friday evening. This was our first concert at Red Rocks, and we were unprepared for the issues with parking. To my surprise, parking for the event was actually free, but there are limited lots and we ended up having to park very far away. Due to fortuitous timing with my stop at a port-a-potty, we were able to hop on one of the few shuttles bringing guests up to the top of the amphitheatre.
Our seats were great for the concert, as we were seated in the fan section in the 15th row. With thunderstorms looming, the crew had to take down the LED screens for safety reasons due to the winds. This delayed the start of the show until 9:30pm, which was already past my bedtime. Thankfully, the severe weather didn’t hamper the concert further, and we were treated to two hours of her music (which made for a very late night by the time we did the long walk back to our car and drove to our hotel for the night in Golden).
We had a timed park entry + Bear Lake reservation for 10am-12pm on Saturday, so we got on our way early to make the drive to Estes Park. Thankfully, I realized along the way that the only food for purchase in the park is at the Trail Ridge Store next to the Alpine Visitor Center (11,796 feet), which was not close to where we needed to be for our timed Bear Lake reservation. I found a wonderful small market in Lyons, St Vrain Market, where we were able to stop on our way to Estes Park and pick up food to bring with us for lunch. The market offered several gluten-free options, which was a huge bonus. We were able to purchase made to order sandwiches from the deli with chips and a cookie as part of the lunch special.
With our picnic lunch for later secured, we continued on to Rocky Mountain National Park, and we entered at Fall River Entrance Station (to bypass the traffic in Estes Park). We headed directly to the park and ride shuttle on Bear Lake Road because all of the parking lots at the trailheads were already full. The shuttle service worked well for us, and we started our hike from the Bear Lake trailhead after getting some intel from the park rangers there on current trail conditions.
Due to snow at the higher elevations (above 10k feet) and muddy trails due to melting snow, we had to revise our hiking plan for the next day. For today, we knew that severe thunderstorms were forecast for the afternoon, so we had a limited window available for hiking. It was time to get a move on.
We started with a “stroll” around Bear Lake, even there we still encountered small patches of snow on parts of the flat loop around the lake. Then, we took the trail up to Nymph Lake and Dream Lake. Our hike ended there though due to snow-covered trails and thunderstorms with hail! But, by the time that we descended, the weather looked decent enough that we decided to continue on to Alberta Falls and pick up the return shuttle from Glacier Gorge Junction instead of Bear Lake.
Despite the ominous clouds, Kurt decided that he wanted to drive some of Trail Ridge Road in the late afternoon after we were done with our hiking for the day. Not too far into our drive, we came upon a traffic backup heading up the mountain. As we crawled our way forward, we realized that the delay was due to several elk in a field right next to the road near Beaver Ponds. A park ranger was there advising drivers not to stop due to lack of a shoulder on the road.
After this excitement, we continued our drive, stopping at some of the viewpoints: Rainbow Curve (located at the edge of treeline with vistas to the East), Forest Canyon (the first stop above treeline with a “paved path” that disappeared into the snow), and Many Parks Curve (views of Longs Peak). We continued to experience rain and hail along the way, so we decided to turn around and head toward our hotel which was located just outside the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center.
As usual, our attention quickly turned to food. We ate dinner at The Birds Nest, right next to our hotel (pizza available with gluten-free crust). Then, we walked across the street to The Country Market of Estes Park to pick up another made to order deli sandwich for lunch on our hike tomorrow (gluten-free bread available).
On Sunday, we had a timed park entry + Bear Lake reservation for 6am-8am. Our hotel location right outside of the park made this early start easy for us, even though there was a long line to get in at Beaver Meadows Entrance Station around 7:30am. With favorable weather forecast, we were planning on doing a longer hike today. The park ranger yesterday advised us to hike up to Fern Lake, so we scrapped our original planned hike for this one due to the trail conditions.
This area is less popular, so we were able to easily get a parking spot at the Fern Lake trailhead (8,155 feet). Our feet hit the trail just before 8am, and Kurt quickly noted that this would be more of a wilderness hike than what we did yesterday in terms of the terrain and number of people. With other hikers few and far between, I really enjoyed the solitude of this trail, particularly with the sound of rushing water next to the trail for the first half.
Our first bit of excitement came about 2.25 miles into the hike when a descending hiker asked if we had seen any moose because their group had heard reports from ascending hikers that there was one near the trail. In a crazy stroke of luck, he happened to spot the moose, sitting down obscured by trees, right where I had stopped on the trail to talk to him. Pleased with this chance wildlife encounter, we continued onward and upward.
Fern Falls was the next big feature on the trail, as we made our way through the burn area toward Fern Lake (elevation 9,530 feet). We attempted to continue on from Fern to Odessa Lake, but we had to turn around about halfway there due to snow. We reached a snow-covered section on a downward slope with a thin snow “crust,” and we deemed it unsafe for us to continue so we turned back.
We saw a couple of elk amongst the trees on our way down. Then, as we started to get closer to the spot where we saw the moose earlier, I wondered if he would still be there, so we kept a close eye out once we heard from another hiker that he was up and moving near the trail now. Sure enough, I saw him eating foliage just ahead of us off to the left side of the trail. We stopped to watch him and get a sense of whether we could continue down the trail. Our forward progress came to a halt though when he crossed the trail in front of us to check out the food on the other side. Eventually, we took a slight detour from the trail so that we could pass him safely and continue our descent.
We stopped at The Pool on our way back down to eat our picnic lunch in the shade. Much of the trail was largely exposed without much tree cover, so this made for a somewhat hot hike on a beautiful sunny day (particularly for Kurt, who was carrying a heavier backpack with our lunch, etc. and the camera).
After finishing up around 1pm, we drove over to the nearby Moraine Discovery Center to change clothes and put away all of our hiking stuff since we were heading to the airport next. But, first, another stop at St. Vrain Market in Lyons was in order for the requisite post-hike Coke Zero and pastry.
We encountered more thunderstorms as we approached the Denver airport, which we knew would affect flight schedules. And, sure enough, our flight kept getting pushed further back due to the incoming flight arriving late. When it was all said and done, our 7pm flight took off around 10pm, which made for a very late arrival back home in Austin.
But, that’s what you get during the summer in the mountains.