Despite the best intentions, it always seems more difficult to go to the mountains during the winter. It’s just too easy to hang out at home where its warm and you can sleep in. Inevitably though, the overwhelming urge to throw a backpack on and hit the trail pulls you out of your climate controlled comfort. That’s how this weekend went for me. It had been too long since I went into the mountains with my camera and tripod so I called my father-in-law, Jim, to see if he wanted to make a quick trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. Jim has an A-liner camper so we weren’t exactly roughing it. We drove up to the park from Colorado Springs on Saturday afternoon and stayed through Sunday. Getting a campsite wasn’t overly challenging – most people head for home or their hotel room when the sun begins to set in February. We setup camp in Moraine Park campground and then headed to Bear Lake for sunset.
 |
| Longs Peak and frozen Bear Lake at sunset |
Bear Lake was ours to explore in solitude, which if you have ever been to Bear Lake in the summer is a rare experience. The wind was gusting pretty hard but that’s the price you pay for it to be 35F after sunset at 9,500ft in February.
 |
| Closeup of Longs Peak and Keyboard of the Winds with my 70-200mm |
We waited for the last light to fade and then headed back to camp to grill some steaks by the fire and have a few drinks. We climbed in the camper for the night pretty early because the wind was too much for the fire. We went to sleep (briefly) to the wind rocking us around. Sometime around 2:30AM the wind gusted so hard it separated the roof and we could see moonlight. Not good. I suggested we rotate the trailer into the wind for better aerodynamics. I guess the positive side of having been awake listening to the wind for hours was it wasn’t too much of a shock to have to go outside. This seemed to stabilize the situation a little but sleep was still aloof so I patiently waited for morning so we could get moving on the trail. We started from the Bear Lake trailhead again and set off for Dream Lake.
 |
| Dream Lake with Hallett Peak in the bacground |
The wind at Dream Lake was ferocious but it was nice enough to blow all the snow away so I could take some detail shots of the fractures and air pockets in the ice. Once again, we had the place to ourselves. I love coming here in the winter!
 |
| Ice detail in Dream Lake |
I finished shooting at the lake and a few people showed up…damn, time to move on. We planned to take the trail to Lake Haiyaha which we couldn’t seem to locate. We bushwhacked up the slope where the map said the trail should be until we eventually crossed a good skin track and followed that. It might not have been the normal trail but if offered some incredible views of Longs Peak.
 |
| Longs Peak and Storm Peak getting blasted by Chinook winds |
 |
| The wind forms interesting looking satrugi in the snow |
To get there:
You can access Moraine Park Campground (open year round) and the Bear Lake Trailhead by entering the national park through the town of Estes Park (less than 1.5hrs from Denver on a good day). It costs $20 for a seven day pass to the park – they will give you a map at the entrance station that shows campgrounds and trailheads, etc. Moraine Park Campground is on the way to Bear Lake.
Route:
There are a lot of variations of this route you can do to explore more. We started at the Bear Lake trailhead (ample parking all day during the winter) and hiked to Dream Lake (approx 1.1 mi). This stretch is well traveled and snow shoes are not necessarily required if you stay on the packed trail. From here we hiked to Lake Haiyaha (approx 1.0 mi). This part of the trail (not even sure we ever found it) doesn’t get used very much in the winter so snow shoes are a must. Expect to sweat a little bit going up for a short distance – the views will reward you though. From Lake Haiyaha we were going to snowshoe to the intersection with the Loch Vale trail and loop back along Glacier Gorge to our trailhead. Instead, we found a well used winter trail down the next drainage southeast of Chaos Canyon (maybe another mile). This took us to a major trail junction where we followed the sign 1.0 mi back to Bear Lake (uphill, not the best finish).
Precautions:
Winter travel in the mountains can add new challenges to your trip. Allow extra time to get through your planned route and be prepared to break trail through deep snow at times. Keep in mind days are shorter so plan accordingly. Also, even on a clear day, high winds and blowing snow can disorient you and obscure tracks. It is relatively easy to find routes in this part of the park that avoid avalanche paths but we did see a small slide and others were reported in the park the same day so be aware.
