On the 11th morning in America’s West we packed up camp at Lost Lake and headed on the four mile trail to Aspen Meadows.
Overnight, a combination of sleet, snow, and rain covered our rain flies and also got the inside of the tent partially wet around the ends.
It was an easy and downhill hike to our next campsite and we arrived before noon and began eating lunch. We noticed that it was threatening to rain and started to wonder what we would do for the rest of the day. It was later decided that we would skip the last night at Rocky Mountain and continue on the trail to the Dunraven Trailhead. That was the easiest 10 miles I have ever hiked. It was all downhill and we barely stopped. The only snag was that we had to hike fifteen feet apart when we heard thunder to avoid lightning strike.
Along the hike someone pointed out a fairly large marmot sitting on a log across the creek (picture 4). I guess it’s the little things that count the most.
We made it out of the trail by 3 and were pretty excited about our success so we stopped at the Glen Haven General Store for some locally famous homemade cinnamon rolls and snacks.
As we drove out of the Park we began to notice that some serious weather was coming in that would have been miserable to camp in (and potentially unsafe) so we were grateful about the decision to change plans. Spontaneously, it began to snow while we were driving across the mountains which was quite surprising (picture 8). Also along the way we spotted mule deer, antelope, and elk (picture 9). We were able to book another night at the condominiums at Winter Park, which was incredibly nice because we were able to sit out our tents, repack, heat up some frozen pizzas, and get a good rest. It definitely beat sleeping in a wet tent. The tenth picture is the sunset from the balcony of the condominium that night.
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