After getting warmed up on the meadow, I attemped a more rigorous hike up the Fern Lake Trail. The trail leads about two miles up into the wilderness to a spot called "the Pools" on the Big Thompson river, and then splits and one side goes up to Cub Lake, the other goes on up to Fern Lake. The trail follows the river up, up, up, and I do mean "up". The thin air makes hiking uphill more of a chore than it is in Virginia. Naturally, I had plenty of water with me... the rangers say that dehydration is the main component of altitude sickness. I went through a gallon of water on this hike.
The river is full of cascades and short waterfalls. It runs fast. The river is full of huge rocks which have fallen off the mountain cliffs over the gorge. Beaver are very active in this area, but because the river runs so strong, instead of dams, they build diversions, which divert part of the river water over into a flat area beside the river, and they then dam up the end of the flat area to create their ponds. See the picture below of the beaver pond. I saw plenty of felled trees with beaver tooth marks, but never saw a beaver.
There is a picture of me standing in a cluster of rocky boulder-type chunks, with the boulders towering over me. This area is called "arch rocks" on the park map.
About 2 miles into the wilderness, I arrived at the bridge over "the Pool". It isn't a pool at all, it is a cascade. It is the picture right after the picture of me on the bridge. The cascade is a lot larger than the picture makes it look, probably cascading down about 120 feet or more.
Along the trail, I came across lots of elk, elk (the dark brown doe's in the picture below... one of them is smiling and saying 'cheese'...), plenty of chipmunks, and whole lotta mule deer (the lighter-colored doe). I didn't see an elk buck.
After passing the pool, I started up the trail towards Cub Lake, but it looked like it was going to be out in the sun for a while, so after about half a mile or so, I turned around and took the other fork. I went another mile or two up the trail towards Fern Lake, but the weather turned threatening, with thunder and lightning. I don't like to mess with lightning, so I took shelter under some rocks for a while. After about a half hour, the worst seemed over, but I didn't want to take chances by being up on a ridge, so I decided to come back down to the parking lot. All in all, it took me about five hours, and I only covered about six or seven miles total. I was taking it real easy, and stopping to take pictures all along the way, listen to the wildlife, and watch the antics of the animals and birds. It is amazing how much wildlife you can see if you stay quiet and still for a while.
One interesting thing: as I was walking along the trail in an open area, I stopped to watch two pica's chase each other... (pica's are like small rats or large chipmunks, but lack the racing stripes... they look like small squirrels with short thin tails)... when out of the sky fell this huge apparition. A golden eagle snapped out of the sky and slammed into one of the picas. He picked it up and flew off with it. I didn't have my camera ready, and the eagle came in and was gone in about three seconds total, so I didn't get a picture, but it happened about 40 feet in front of me.
Click on the pictures below for a larger version.
Wow, I *love* hiking in the wilderness.
2 comments:
Beautiful pictures. I am glad you got the camera and are getting it to work right.
Wow, I really love these pictures. I think Michael and I need to get our act together and take the girls on a little hike. It would probably do us a lot of good to escape to the mountains for a few hours.
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