Climbing Waterfalls: Sky Pond at Rocky Mountain National Park
Our National Parks road trip has officially begun! After our first night car camping in the Walmart parking lot in Amarillo, TX, we finished the drive up to Fort Collins, CO. Jared’s aunt and uncle graciously agreed to host us during our time in Colorado because although the car camping set up worked like a charm, all things considered, we still prefer an actual bed.
For our first hike of the trip, we decided to do the same hike that I did with some friends on a girls’ trip: Glacier Gorge to Sky Pond in Rocky Mountain National Park. The main attractions of this hike are the multiple alpine lakes that you pass. You gain about 2,000 feet of elevation over the course of the trail, which isn’t remotely daunting for two people who generally reside about 90 feet above sea level.
And to make matters more dramatic, thunderstorms were expected for that afternoon. Excellent. Just what you want when you’re standing exposed on top of a mountain at 11,000 feet: lightning.
A quick note for those of you planning a visit to Rocky Mountain National Park: for $80, you can buy an annual park pass (America the Beautiful Pass) that gives you unlimited entry to pretty much all the national parks for a year. They usually aren’t too hard to come by, but with COVID-19 going on, it was a lot more complicated. You can buy them at the entry station to pretty much any national park, however they are currently using a reserved entry time system to limit the number of visitors in Rocky Mountain National Park during the pandemic. Since this was the first park we would visit, we needed the pass BEFORE we could make our entry reservation, so we had to order it online. Usually, you can also buy the passes at REI, but they were out of stock.
The earliest entry time we could get was 8 am, which meant we got on the trail a little later than we would have liked. HOWEVER, one of the rangers told me that they don’t man the entry booths before 6 am, and gates are open around the clock. So theoretically, you could just enter before 6 am and skip the whole thing, assuming you’ve bought an annual pass so your entry fee has been paid.
I would describe the trail up to Sky Pond, but to be entirely honest it was a blur because we were BOOKING IT. Storm clouds were hot on our heels and we were determined to make it to the top before it caught up with us. A large part of our haste was based on the knowledge of the hazards awaited us at the end of the trail: a snowfield followed by a half-melted glacial waterfall that you have to climb.
Despite this being the second time I have done this hike, I still don’t have a picture of the waterfall, because something about standing in a stream bed staring up a rock face that you’re about to scale while semi-frozen water flows over your hands and feet makes you think twice about pulling out your very expensive, very not-waterproof camera.
Despite my lack of photographic evidence, and I cannot emphasize this enough, WE CLIMBED A WATERFALL. Like, stick your hands into glacial run-off to grab the rocks under the surface that are your handholds and CLIMB. TLC had warned me about chasing waterfalls, but I did not have any guidance about climbing them.
At the top of the waterfall, you find a beautiful glacial lake which, it turns out, is NOT Sky Pond. When I had done this hike before, we got to the top of the waterfall, patted ourselves on the back for making it, then turned around and climbed back down. Oops.
Glass Lake
It turns out that the lake at the top of the waterfall is Glass Lake. If you continue a little further down what I will generously call a “path,” you come to the end point of the trail, Sky Pond. To be entirely honest, they’re both spectacular, so I won’t beat myself up too much for only making it to Glass Lake the first time.
Sky Pond
As we headed back down the mountain, grateful to be going downhill for the first time all day, we did enjoy slowing down and taking in the scenery we had blown past that morning. If you’d like to watch the full hike, check out our vlog!
Overall, I give this trail an 8/10. The scenery is beautiful, the climb is challenging but exhilarating, and the payoff at the end is worth the effort. It might have scored even higher if it weren’t for the circumstances of our hike: 4th of July holiday weekend meaning crowded trails, reserved entry time meaning a late start, and inclement weather meaning a stressful trip up and a damp trip down.
We decided to split our time in Rocky Mountain between the beginning and end of our trip to give ourselves a good stopping point on the way back, so we’ll be coming back in a little over a week. But for now, we’re heading out to the next park on our list. Any guesses which one?
What are your favorite hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park? Anything we need to see when we come back through? Would you climb the waterfall or is that a big fat nope for you? Let me know in the comments!