We were lucky to get to go on vacation this year to the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. In this post I will tell you a little bit about the experience, maybe it will help you plan your own trip to the RMNP or another similar place.
On our first day we hiked from the most popular trail location called “Bear Lake”. It is located near Estes Park on the east side of RMNP. One of the first lakes we saw was this one:
The first lake on the hike to Dream Lake from the Bear Lake trailhead.
Wow, isn’t it an amazing image? Well, it was tough not to hang around at every spot and take zillions of photos, so we did good in this regard. We knew we had a long hike ahead and we wanted to make it up and back before it got dark. One of the tough things about hiking in such scenic areas is simply staying focused on going forward. If you’re hiking an area like this and want to take pictures, it’s best to plan multiple days of hiking if you want to do lots of detail shots along the way and still get to all the impressive scenic spots.
View from the trail going up to Dream Lake and Lake Haiyaha.
Even though we wanted to get up to the scenic lakes and take all the awesome photos one of the hardest parts was simply going up the trail at these elevations. Most of the hike is above 10,000 feet which meant our bodies were working hard to acclimatize to the thinner air.
Even though it felt like forever we ended up only taking a couple hours to get up to our final destination of Lake Haiyaha which you can see in the picture below. It was a really wonderful hike but it was hard work. I actually took this photo standing on top of giant boulder that was sitting in the lake! I won’t tell you how I got up there but it was a little bit scary.
Lake Haiyaha in HDR.
Lake Haiyaha is tough because the trail ends before it gets to the actual lake. From the trail end there’s a lot of boulders that must be climbed over to get to a good picture taking location. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much indication that this was the case. It was a bit of a nasty surprise to have to do all the scrambling about on rocks but I guess it was worth it.
As tough as that hike ended up being, 4 days later we would do an even more difficult hike on an even longer route up to a lake aptly named “Sky Pond”. Initially we weren’t even sure we would do Sky Pond after the first day because it seemed like it was too far and too high up for us to manage. But, on a day when we intended to do a much more conservative and easy hike we made the rash decision to go all the way up to Sky Pond instead.
The Loch, a really cool lake that I wish I could have explored more. Don't ask me where all this water is coming from! I guess there is just that much snow melting all year long... (Conspiracy alert; do they actually pump water into the lakes??)
On this hike I made the decision to leave behind my RF 28-70mm f/2 L which weighs over 3lbs. As much as I wanted that lens, and I wish I could have taken it, I knew I wasn’t going to make the easier route we had planned initially with that in my bag, much less a longer hike to Sky Pond. I ended up being 100% correct on that because it was one of the most difficult hikes I’ve ever done.
The difference in elevation between 10,378ft, and 10,928ft, for me, was like night and day. Once we were above maybe 10,700ft everything got more difficult of course, but it wasn’t like before, now if I pushed myself even a little I would actually feel dizzy. Any kind of strain such as bending down to take a picture then standing up again would result in a lightheaded feeling. Jumping up one or two steps in a row would have me breathing hard. If I didn’t take the most measured and careful approach, every single step of the way, I would feel the effects of my actions immediately afterward. I had a few moments where I realized that if I passed out, I might fall over the edge and roll down the mountain.
Lake of Glass.
Needless to say, I became very focused on just taking the next step, taking pictures started to seem like it was secondary to staying safe and alert on the mountain. At one point we had to scramble up some rocks to make it to the final stretch up to Sky Pond. In order to do that I had to decide to put my camera in my bag and leave it there. There was no messing around on this section of trail, with loose rocks and ice all around us on a near vertical climb up treacherous rocks with my senses dulled by the ever-decreasing levels of oxygen. I had to put 100% of my mental energy into just making the climb.
Once we got over the rock scramble it was all a blur. It was tough staying focused but I was still making it one step at a time. I felt that I could finish the hike to Sky Pond and I pushed through and made it. But when I finally got to Sky Pond it was somewhat nightmarish. First, the brightness of the scene was overwhelming. I highly recommend bringing sunglasses with you if you’re going to a high peak. Not being able to look away from the light is a weird experience that I had never had before. No matter where I looked there was simply too much light pouring into my eyeballs… Not to mention that there were no trees or vegetation to seek shelter in. It’s honestly 1 step away from what I would imagine hell to be like.
Secondly, it was so hard to do anything because of the thin air. Sky Pond is pushing 11,000 feet, which when combined with the unavoidable brightness produced a feeling of unease that kind of made me wish I could call a Sky Taxi to come and fly me the heck out of their as fast as possible.
The horrifying face of "Sky Pond".
My girlfriend and I couldn’t stay long at Sky Pond even if we wanted to because we had to get off the mountain so we could catch the shuttle back to our car. (Or we’d have to add miles and miles more hiking.) It ended up being that the hike back was 10 times more miserable than the hike up. Along the way we even contemplated going to sleep in a bed of pine needles and just catching a shuttle in the morning. We decided to keep walking, but I ended up having to give my backpack to my girlfriend, Kate, who carried it the rest of the way down the hill, and I took her bag. For some reason, the specific stresses of each bag were too much, and simply changing the weights made it that much easier. I managed to emerge from the trail into the parking lot about 2.5 hours after reaching Sky Pond. I knew it would be a difficult hike for us because we weren’t adjusted to the elevation, and we aren’t very experienced hikers, but I still wasn’t really prepared for how tired I was after this hike.
There's lots of these little chipmunks running around on the trail.
Thankfully, nothing really bad happened along the way, other than the fact that I slipped and fell on my butt into a snow pile. (Then started sliding down the mountain.) But it could have been worse. With how dizzy we were getting at points it’s kind of a miracle we made it out without injuring ourselves. I guess it was worth the risk because we got cool photos to take home with us, and of course we saw and experienced a unique natural environment up in the mountains.
The lesson learned is that hiking in the mountains is a lot more difficult than I realized. At higher elevations it really helps if you’re fit and trim. My advice is that most people should probably lose some weight if they’re not in shape before attempting high elevation hikes above 10,000 feet.
Overall, I would say that my trip to RMNP was a good experience. While it is a smaller park it has some of the most scenic hikes you can take anywhere, with abundant mountain lakes and wildlife all around. That said, it wouldn’t take a strong hiker more than a couple weeks to experience almost all the popular trails in the park. I’m sure there are things hiding around out there though so it might be worth it to spend more time there if you can.
2 Comments
Even if it is a variable aperture lens, what is the problem with that?
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