Rocky Mountain National Park - Granite Falls Hike

Day 2 of our week-long Rocky Mountain National Park Hiking Extravaganza!  Today we picked a 12-mile hike to Granite Falls, by way of Big Meadow.  We're hoping to undertake a 14-mile hike up to the source of the Colorado River later in the week, and we're trying to work our way up to that mileage and elevation.  By all measures, today was a success:  we finished the hike in great form and with our feet and other parts not feeling particularly bruised or injured.

We started early because of the forecast of thunderstorms as early as 1pm.  It was a balmy 40F as we started and David posed at the trailhead sign:

As we started up the trail, we immediately encountered a little "Free Willy" beany-baby that some poor junior hiker must have dropped yesterday.  The unfortunate mini-whale had been rescued by some unnamed hiker and placed lovingly on a rock alongside the path - hopefully to be reunited with his owner today:

After 2 miles, and some intense leap-frogging with a family that was out on a backpack to scale one of the local peaks (they have a cabin in the area and have been doing this for what sounded like too many years; we were faster hikers than they were, but David kept stopping to take photos), we arrived at Big Meadow, which is reputed to be the home of some elk and moose.  As soon as we arrived, Kathy mounted the nearest lookout to pan and scan for wildlife.  Unfortunately, no wildlife was to be found.  We attributed the scarcity of wildlife to the talkative, noisy, peak-bagging family.  Oh, well.

At this junction, we turned north and started around the Big Meadow.  Along the way, we encountered the remains of two old log settlers' cabins.  David stands at what he imagined was the front door of one of them:

A little further up the trail, we saw our first, NEWLY MINTED Continental Divide Trail marker.  Now we were section-hiking the CDT!  Cool!  As is our wont, we now have to ask our friend Dick Mallery if this is the route he took when he hiked the CDT years ago.  Luckily, Dickie Bird has a photographic memory and will be able to tell us exactly what his route was through Rocky Mountain National Park.

Passing above the Big Meadow, we encountered a string of more meadows, through which beautiful Tonahutu Creek flows.  It is clear that Tonahutu Creek fed and drained these meadows when they were great post-glacial lakes.  Now it moistens these beautiful wetland meadows.  Eagle-eyed Kathy spotted little brook trout hanging out under the grassy banks and sipping flies.  More on flies and hatches and who caught them, later in this blog entry.

This particular area of Rocky Mountain National Park did not have many wildflowers at this time of year - until we reached a burned area that looks like it was engulfed by fire only a year or two ago (more on this area as we return back from the Falls).  Already it is regenerating and we spotted a large number of blue asters, gorgeous white flowers, and these golden beauties:

After about 6 miles, we reached gorgeous Granite Falls.  Its waters gush over boulders and shelves, tumbling down along perhaps a quarter miles of stream.  For this reason, it was impossible to photograph the whole, great scale of the falls.  Here is one of the most beautiful sections --

-- and here is a video that show the section we stopped beside:

Six miles of hiking calls for boots-off-and-toes-in-the-water, and below we memorialized the great toe-dipping --

-- well, Kathy's, anyway.  Here is proof of her wet feet down by the water:

 David contented himself with cooling his feet on the smooth granite boulders where we ate lunch, and trying to take photos capturing the deep colors and motion of the pools in the waterfall: 

While David was watching Kathy dip her toes, he spotted this enterprising little ant, struggling to haul a dead spinner (mayfly that has laid its eggs on the water and, having flown up from the stream, expires and spins down, lifeless, to the water or ground below) up the crevices and crags of the pink granite boulder on which we were sitting.  Apparently, the ant family is going to have a very big meal tonight.

Having filled ourselves on sandwiches for lunch and the beauties of Granite Falls, we headed back down the trail.  When we arrived at the fire-burned section, we paused to admire the stark and colorful beautify of burned fir trees against the granite cliffs (oh, and Kathy also paused to pick a BUNCH of wild raspberries).  With so many berries here, fostered by the drenching sun due to the burned forest, we wondered why the local bears hadn't arrived to steal the bounty.  We figure that, either it's too early for the bears to come down this low in elevation, or the bears don't know these berries are here, because this is their first season.  Anyway, we glanced nervously over our shoulders as Kathy gathered the berries.  They made a very tasty yogurt protein-fruit shake for us when we got back to the RV from our hike.

The recent fire produced some interesting patterns of color and black-and-white:

Already, some of the burned trees are providing food.  We spotted some fun guys holding a bachelor party on the carbonized surface of this dead tree:

As we hiked back down through the meadows, the afternoon light gave us some beautiful views we had missed on our hike up:

And, as we passed Big Meadow, David turned to catch a shot up the meadow toward the mountains lit from sunlight between the clouds of an approaching thunderstorm:

From the time we passed Big Meadow, the thunder approached closer and closer, and the dark grey clouds seemed to gather as they came over the ridge in our direction.  It started sprinkling.  Then it was raining.  Then the drops were larger.  We started hustling down the trail.  As we neared our trailhead, the rain turned to pea-sized hail, and we yelled in pain from our wrists being hit by hail balls as we held our trekking poles.  David filmed a video of the pelting hail as we hiked down the trail, but you'll just have to imagine it, because we don't have enough bandwidth at this campground to upload another video.  Anyway, everyone knows that photos and videos of falling snow and hail never show it the way we experience it in person.

We plan to start that long 14-mile hike at the crack of dawn to minimize the risk of getting caught in the afternoon thunderstorms that are so common in the mountains at this time of year.

We returned to our RV, and the place was dry.  Not a drop fell in the campground.  Not, that is, until we returned, and then it rained on Kathy and Baxter as they held Baxter-hour before our post-hike showers.

More adventures tomorrow.