Snow?

The day started warm and sunny as we left to drive up to Bear Lake at around 8 AM since the Bear Lake Road closes to auto traffic at 9 AM. The Park Service is reconstructing a large section of the road and only allows shuttle busses up the road between 9 AM and 4:30 PM. If you're already up there, you're allowed to drive back.

It took us about an hour to get to the Bear Lake trailhead parking lot as there are several spots where there are flaggers, including a single lane unpaved stretch where they are rebuilding retaining walls. The Bear Lake parking lot was less than half full when we arrived, but was nearly full by the time we got started on our hike.

Ellen's back has recovered (mostly) so it was a hiking day, finally. It was still warm and sunny so it was shorts and short sleeves for Ellen and a tee shirt and long pants for me. We did pack warm jackets and rain gear along with our lunch, though, since the forecast said 50 percent chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. We had intended to take a lake loop hike of about seven miles, going up to Nymph Lake, Dream Lake and Emerald Lake, with about 600 feet of gain, then back down past Dream Lake and onto anther trail to Lake Haiyaha, with another 350 feet of climbing, after that the loop went another four miles downhill to Alberta Falls and back up to the Bear Lake trailhead. We didn't make it, mother nature had another idea.

It was still sunny as we headed up the trail to Nymph Lake. The trail guide at the Bear Lake Ranger Station said the trail had "moderate" traffic, but it started as a paved trail, so we were a bit suspicious. There turned out to be quite a bit of traffic, but at last we were hiking in the mountains, among conifers and aspens, which are beginning to turn yellow, with expansive views of the peaks around us.

By the time we got to Nymph Lake, it was beginning to cloud over and the sky was as gray as the Gray Jays that perched above us, probably looking for a handout. Nymph Lake was quite small, with water lily pads around the edge. There was a log dam at one end that might have been a beaver dam in the past, but only kept water out of a little wetland at the end of the lake.

We continued on to Dream Lake, a half-mile further and 200 feet higher. Dream was a larger lake, but still pond-sized. There was a young boy there, about 12, fly fishing. He looked pretty good at it, but wasn't catching anything. The man with him, who looked like his grandfather, said that he'd just started fly fishing about six weeks ago and the fly rod and a fly-tying kit was what he had wanted for his birthday. He wasn't fishing in quite the right spot though, we saw a 12-14-inch trout swimming just out from the shore about 50 yards further along the lake. By now it was quite gray, with thunder in the distance and rain visible on Long's Peak, 5,000 feet higher and several miles away. We continued on up the trail despite the weather.

After three quarters of a mile and another 200 feet of climbing, we reached the end of the trail at Emerald Lake, the largest of the three lakes, in a steep bowl, with a cascade at the far end. It was a bit crowded there and just spitting a bit of rain as Ellen went down to the shore to try to take some pictures. We could hear fair amount of thunder by now, but when there was a bright lightning flash and a loud crash of thunder five seconds later, we decided it was time to break out the rain gear and head back down the trail. Did I mention that lightning strikes are a real danger in the Rockies?

The spitting rain became a sprinkle by the time we reached the Lake Haiyaha turn-off and the thunder was becoming more constant. It was a 4.5 mile hike if we took that route but a 1.1 mile hike if we went directly back to the trailhead. We decided on the latter course. It turned out to be the right choice. The rain was pretty steady by the time we reached the bus shelters at the trailhead. We decided to go back to Speedy and have lunch in its warm confines. The rain got quite heavy while we were having lunch, the lightning flashed, the thunder crashed and we couldn't even see Long's Peak.

We had hoped that it would just pass through quickly and we could continue to hike. It soon became apparent that it was going to last a while and the trails would be quite wet when it did stop so we decided to head back to the campground. Remember that single-lane section of road? When we got to it there were about twenty cars waiting at the temporary lights. We didn't think this unusual, since we'd been warned that there could be delays of up to a half hour.

An hour and a half later, after being drilled by Ellen and her new Sibley's bird flashcards, we finally moved. An upward bound shuttle bus had broken down in the single-lane section of the construction area. It took a while for a big tow truck to come from who knows where to pull it out. Judging from the line of cars behind us, which we could see extending far back on the switchbacks above, virtually every car that had been in the parking lot at Bear Lake was waiting.

It was then a long procession down to Moraine Park and the campground. As we turned into the campground road, we could see Long's Peak in the distance. The top was covered in snow. What had been rain at Bear Lake had been snow and probably worse at 14,259 feet.