Purple mountain majesty

We just returned from a week in Colorado and it has been the highlight of our summer! Our main reason for going on the trip was for Beth and John's wedding, which was beautiful. We were fortunate to visit some old friends and take a couple days to enjoy Rocky Mountain National Park as well.

As much as we enjoyed ourselves, I think we were a little too comforable with the Rockies and forgot to make sure we were as prepared as usual. First, as we were packing the night before we departed, I realized I forgot the stuff sack for my sleeping bag. When our bags aren't in use, we store them in large mesh bags to help them retain their loft. When hiking, however, we of course want them to fit into as small a space as possible. I tried to just roll up my sleeping bag and tie it with rope. When uncontained my sleeping bag inflates like a rubber raft though, and the stuff sack was proving to be an essential item. We stopped in Boulder the next day for a compression sack, which solved that problem.

When we arrived at RMNP, we went straight for the backcountry permit office. The ranger set us up with a nice hike that allowed us to venture decently into the wilderness, but also wasn't too difficult as we are now far from acclimated to the altitude. The route planned was to begin at the Bear Lake trailhead. From there, we would hike five miles to Fern Lake. We planned to camp just one night at Fern Lake and then hike out to the Fern Lake trailhead the next day. Just one problem, at the trailhead: it was raining. We don't have pack covers, so we usually just fit large trash bags over our packs to keep them dry. Matt asked me where the trash bags were, and I said I thought he had them. We eventually found some, but they quickly proved to be way too small. We resolved to put all the items inside our packs into trashbags and then back into our packs. Onward we went, finally on the trail.



My finger is on the trail head. Fern Lake is to the Northwest. The Fern Lake trailhead is near the top right corner of the picture. The trail started off moderately difficult because it was steep and crowded. Also, while our rainsuits kept the rain off, they kept all the heat in, which made them like personal saunas. Within the first hour, the rain had passed and so had our fellow hikers. Now on our own, we came across a beautiful view (the top picture), one of many. I got out the camera to capture the splendor, and . . . low battery! We couldn't believe we had completely forgotten to charge the battery! We took a quick picture and put it away to save for later.

Several hours later we arrived at Fern Lake. We were saving our battery for a picture of the falls, and it was hard to find a place for a good picture of the lake, so this picture is just from yahoo images. It is an amazing shot though and really shows you where we were.



We saw a beaver on the trail and a few deer in the woods. It was so beautiful there. The air was clean, fresh, and cool. It was perfect. We felt like we could just live there forever.

This leads us to our next mishap. The next morning, Matt went to the river for some water. He was planning on boiling it and putting it into the bag of dehydrated eggs for breakfast. Strangely though, he read the directions and this time, you were supposed to put the eggs directly in the pan. Strangely again, Matt followed the directions, which meant he forgot to boil the water first. The eggs were almost done when Matt realized the water wasn't sanitary and we had no way of knowing if we would contract dysentary from the eggs or not. Rather than risk a very unpleasant hike back, we burried the eggs and started over. Our other option for a hot breakfast was Jamaican BBQ Chicken. We boiled the water first this time, but the pot hardly got warm before the fuel ran out! This attempt clearly wasn't going to work. We are lucky we had plenty of Clif bars to eat instead!



An hour or so into our hike on the second day, we came to Fern Falls. They were beautiful, strong, and made a wonderful sound as the water pounded the rocks and logs. This was a good time to use up the rest of our camera battery, so Matt climbed down a ledge for this awesome view.



This is us at the falls, and then the camera battery finally died. The rest of the hike was gorgeous and problem-free. It was almost all down-hill from here on out. We soaked up the scenery and followed the river to the trailhead. One night in those mountains felt like we were there for a year. I mean that in the best of ways. It was the perfect end to a great trip.