Photos:
http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2673672007/a=38054161/
Jen and I headed up to visit with family for Thanksgiving. Got together with my Aunt and Godmother, Pam, her son Derek, and a lot of other friends and family. It was great to see them again, and we had a Thanksgiving feast with almost 30 people. We moved the tables from the condos into the hallway, and everyone pitched in to make all kinds of great food. It was quite the extravaganza!
Jen and I then headed off on Friday morning out to Rocky Mountain National Park. We got to the East Inlet trailhead, and found out that there was no self service permits there. Oops. Oversight on my part. Since the East side of the park has self service permits, I was thinking the West side would too. The visitor center wasn't too far away though; so we went and got a permit. It put us a little behind though, and we didn't start hiking until around 1:30pm. It's a great trail, and the day was beautiful. We did the overlook to Adams Falls, which was frozen. The trail was in great shape though; very little ice. Hiked up past East Meadow, and into the valley. It started to get dark, and Jen started to get tired. We pressed forward and made it to Gray Jay camp around 5:30pm. Not as far as we wanted to be, but good enough for tonight. The moon was out, so we had some light even though it was dark; but the temperature had definitely dropped. We set up the tent, made some dinner, and went to bed.
On Saturday, we had some breakfast, packed up some of our gear, and continued up the trail. We left our tent set up as our base camp; and were just doing day hikes from there. We made it up to Lone Pine Lake, and enjoyed the views. The last of the footprints diminished around Lone Pine lake, so we would have to break trail from here. We continued up the trail, now breaking trail, and Jen put on her snowshoes near Solitude camp. The snow wasn't bad, considering we were at around 10,000 feet. There was one drift up to our knees, but most of the trail was 4 inches of snow or less. There was a shady corridor that got to about 6 inches deep, so I put on my snowshoes too; anticipating deeper snow ahead. After that corridor though, it was more open, so the snow diminished and we punished our snowshoes a bit.
Made it to Lake Verna, and walked out on the lake to a small island of exposed rock. Here we had lunch, enjoying the beautiful views of the Continental Divide and several peaks including Mount Craig. Since we found out we didn't really need our snowshoes, we packed them back up and hiked back down to camp. Made it back to camp around 3:30pm, while there was still daylight left. Relaxed and enjoyed the views for a little, and used the daylight to make dinner. Jen bundled up in both sleeping bags and read.
On Sunday, we woke up to a dusting of new snow. It wasn't much new snow, but it made the trees and mountains a beautiful snowy white. We broke camp, and hiked back down during another fantastic weather day. Beautiful blue skies to enjoy the great vistas. It was around 5 miles up to camp; with a total round trip of around 14 miles and 2600 feet of gain. After the hike, we headed back to the Visitor center to give a trail condition report.
Hope you enjoy the
pics!
A.J.
Photos: http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2673672007/a=38054161/
Group Room (multiple albums): http://ajoutdoors.snapfish.com/snapfish