Saturday, Greg, Kelly and I got together to ski at
the old Hidden Valley ski area in Rocky Mountain National Park. The day
was bright and clear, but windy. The mountains beyond Estes Park were
shrouded in blowing snow.
The conditions at Hidden Valley were pretty
poor. The area has been closed for years, and the slopes have been
neglected. There was wind but little snow, which probably explains why the
area closed down. We skied a bit, but gave up early and decided to try the
area around Bear Lake instead. On the way down highway 34 at the Many
Parks Curve overlook we saw this beautiful rainbow cloud over the 14,255 ft
Longs Peak.
There was a fairly large crowd at the Bear Lake
parking lot. Most of the people were there to go tubing at Bear Lake,
or snowshoeing on the trails. The weather was much better here; cold but
not much wind. The snow was surprisingly good and had been groomed
remarkably well by the snowshoers. We headed out on the trail to
Emerald Lake, but since we had such a late start we didn't expect to get that
far. On the way we had to cross Nymph Lake, which was frozen several feet
thick, to get to the Emerald Lake trail.
This is Hallet Peak just short of Dream
Lake.
We reached Dream Lake at nearly 2:30 and
decided that this was far enough. We searched around and found a sheltered
area to have lunch. In spite of the bright sunshine, there was a stiff
wind, blowing snow and cold. We headed back as soon as we finished
eating.
On the way back I noticed several places along the
side of the trail where water had been flowing over the rocks and froze in thick
sheets.
