Wild Basin Trailhead
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| Rocky Mountain National Park Wild Basin Trailhead |
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| We started our adventure through Rocky Mountain National Park by way of the Wild Basin Entrance. Here we started our hike at the Winter Parking Lot (Ele. 8,300 Ft). Our first stop was Copeland Falls, where the water wasn't doing much falling. After hiking to the top of the "falls" we decided to stop to look at the scenary and plot the next destination. | |
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| To avoid backtracking we decided to follow the St.Vrain creek til we were able to cross to get back on the trail. Continuing our goating through the woods we finally found a tree that had fallen across the creek so we decided to cross. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| After we got back on the trail our next stop was past the Calypso Cascades to Ouzel Falls. Here we didn't seem to have a problem with the water being iced over. Of corse from there we didn't continue on the trail, instead we hiked up to the top of the falls and followed the ridge for a while. From there we determined that we need to get back to the trail lower on the mountain so we didn't miss our turnoff to to Thunder Lake. To do this we had to plow or roll through the snow and of course we didn't have snowshoes. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| We finally made it back to the trail just in time to notice that it continued right back up to the ridge and later found out that we missed the turn to Thunder Lake. Due to our change in paths we desided to change our destination and head to Bluebird Lake. After the trail sign we noticed that the snow had taken over the path but we continued for about .5 miles climbing over trees and rocks to avoid the snow. After that we came to the conclusion that the snow was too deep to make it to Bluebird Lake. On our way back we stopped at Ouzel Lake to take a short break and prepare ourselves for the 7 mile trek back. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| During the entire hike we saw lots of animals and they must have been used to people seeing as they didn't seem to be afraid of us. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| On our way back we took the trail instead of our adventure path we did on the way up. We found where the trail split off to do Thunder Lake and we had a chance to mock a rather funny caution sign. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| At the end of the day and 13.6 miles later we headed back to get some real food and rest after a long, fun, wet, hot, sunny, enjoyable hike in the Rocky Mountain National Park. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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