Last Dance With Bierstadt Lake

Alas, this is our last day in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Our hike yesterday was a relatively long 9 miles, so we decided we would throttle back today and do a shorter hike, to loosen up before our move in the truck tomorrow, but not get our muscles too tight.  We decided to explore Bierstadt Lake, which was a 4.6 mile hike with more downs than ups.

We started at Bear Lake, a favorite from earlier in our stay, with great views of Hallett Peak, dressed in the fall colors of aspen:

Here is a close-up of Hallett Peak on the left and Flattop Mountain on the right, with a glimpse of Tyndall Glacier in between:

We are at the peak of fall color here in the Park, and the aspen are obliging with colors of the rainbow:  green, to yellow-green, to bright yellow, to blazing orange:

From Bear Lake, we climbed quickly up through brilliant quaking aspen:

Here, Kathy pauses with her boulder friend in the colorful shade of the aspen trees:

After our climb, we descended into the bowl where Bierstadt Lake lies, and reached the trail junction with the trail around the lake.  A Clark's Nutcracker perched on the trail sign to make sure we made the correct turn:

This was our first view of Bierstadt Lake, with (L-R) Longs Peak, Chiefs Head Peak, McHenrys Peak, Powell Peak, Taylor Peak, Otis Peak, Hallett Peak and Flattop Mountain:

David walked a ways along the shore of the lake and caught another view, further south, from a rocky shore:

Another Clark's Nutcracker flew over to where we were munching our lunch by the lake and stood sentry to be sure we didn't drop any crumbs.  He posed so well for our photos that we got four good ones.  Not being able to decide which of his poses was cutest, we prepared him a modeling portfolio:

After a leisurely lunch, we continued around Bierstadt Lake, poking in and out to and from the lakeshore to see what other views were available.  Exhausting our exploration of the lake, we climbed out the bowl on the other side to a narrow ridge, then started along numerous switchbacks down a steep rock face covered in colorful aspen, affording spectacular views up and down Glacier Basin -- first up --

-- then down, with Sprague Lake in the distance:

Every switch of the switchback brought more views and more color -- first this --

-- then this --

-- and even some silvery colors looking upslope:

Finishing our slalom down the cliff face, we arrived at the Bierstadt Lake trailhead, having enjoyed a very colorful hike full of great lake and mountain views, and rode the hiker shuttle back to our truck, satisfied with our visit to Rocky Mountain National Park.