Two and counting

Provided with a second consecutive Saturday of no obligations, we decided to not waste a moment and headed back North to Rocky Mountain National Park. We were a bit more ambitious this time around opting to park the car as soon as possible and hike up to the clouds instead of driving. The trailhead at Bear Lake was teeming with touristas, and with us being 'locals,' we hightailed it up the trail and felt relief as the voices trailed off behind us. We basically found the hike by picking a random spot on the map, figuring that the odds of seeing wildlife and beautiful nature were in our favor regardless of where we went. This hike was marked as 'difficult,' so the odds were good that we would get to see these things without dealing with much traffic.


The first half of the hike up to Flattop Mountain was well maintained, meandering through the woods. There were many beautiful trees including some which seemed to have been struck by lightning.


The second half of the trail was very steep, rocky and exposed, but revealed some great vistas. As we climbed the trail it was obvious that we were gaining altitude quickly. The sun was hot and the air was thin. While pondering the inhospitable climate met some interesting furry critters that prefer this altitude, like this:


We saw quite a few of these pikas, including one that ran right up the trail next to us with a huge mouth-full of grass.


There were no shortage of marmots near the trail.


Once we summited Flattop, we could see our destination: Hallett Peak. From this point the trail basically turned into a pile of rocks and our only guide was the occasional cairn. The final mile up to the peak was straight up, and once you get over 12,000 feet, the going gets slow.

However, once we got to the top at 12,725 feet, the view was more breathtaking than the lack of oxygen.


We took some time to appreciate the achievement and soak in some sun (which is apparently pretty potent at that altitude as we would find out upon returning).


On our descent back to Flattop, we happened upon some magnificent elk, which capped off a day of some great wildlife encounters. All told, we gained almost 3,250 feet in our six-hour, 11.8 mile hike. Despite some sunburn, blisters and sore muscles we're very excited to keep exploring. Longs Peak, at 16 miles round trip with over 4,500 feet of gain, topping out at 14,259 feet sounds like a worthy goal. It might take a few more day hikes to prepare, but it seems like a feasible goal to hike our first 14er before the end of the year!