We had intended to hike to the summit of Mount Ida in Rocky Mountain National Park today, but the weather forecast called for thunderstorms. Since, Mount Ida is 12,889 feet in elevation and much of the hike is above treeline where we would be very exposed to the storms, we decided to change our plans. We will have to do Ida next time. It is supposed to be a great hike with awesome views from the summit.
Plan B
As an alternative, we decided to hike to Emerald Lake which is only 3.5 miles and mostly under canopy. Avery wasn’t wild about this as the hike was in the Bear Lake area which is very popular and she prefers hikes where there aren’t as many people. But, we didn’t have too many other good choices with the weather. The hike passes two other lakes on the way and we were hoping the crowds would drop off the further we went as the trail does get a lot steeper towards the end.
License Plate Game
When we set out from home we decided to play a game where we would try to see a license plate from every US state and Canadian province before the trip was over. We figured it wouldn’t be too hard to get the vast majority of the states and we actually had 35 US states by the end of day three of the trip. However, we were thinking that we might have a hard time seeing Alaska and Hawaii. Well, walking through the parking lot to our hike we saw both Alaska and Hawaii license plates. So, we were pretty happy with that.
The Hike
As expected, the first couple miles of the hike were pretty congested with lots of people. We first came to Nymph Lake and then Dream Lake, both nice little lakes. About the time we left Dream lake, it started to rain lightly, but we decided to keep going. The crowds also thinned out greatly as we started to gain altitude.
By the time we arrived at Emerald lake, the rain had let up a little so we took some pictures and then decided to climb through a boulder field to get higher above the lake for a better view. Due to the rain, the clouds were very low and covered the peaks behind the lake which made for a cool picture effect. After about 20 minutes it started to rain pretty hard so we climbed down and took off for the car. About half way back the rain turned into hail, which was pretty interesting (and less wet). Lots of people were hiding under trees until the hail turned back to rain, but we kept going and got back to the trailhead pretty quickly.
The Emerald Lake hike looks beautiful and sounds like fun – except for perhaps the part with hail! You are intrepid hikers! And after such a short time on the road, I can’t believe you’ve already spotted all of those license plates. I wonder which state will be last?
Miss you and love you!