SO. MANY. BEARS.
The trip from Glacier back to Houston is about 2,000 miles, so instead of just barreling though, we decided to stop over at Rocky Mountain National Park for one last stop and…
My first overnight backpacking trip!
We had done a lot of day hikes, but this would be my first experience carrying all my gear with me and truly getting into the backcountry. Challenge: accepted.
For day one of the trip, we just had a short little 3 mile hike to our first campsite at Cub Lake. Since we knew that wouldn’t take us very long, we decided to check out Dream Lake and Emerald Lake, one of the most popular day hikes in Rocky Mountain.
Patting ourselves on the back for squeezing in an extra hike, we headed to the trailhead for our backpacking trip, and loaded up. There are two ways to get to our first campsite. We entered at the Cub Lake trailhead, expecting an easy 3 mile hike before setting up camp for the night.
Our original route: Day 1 - Park at Fern Lake, walk down the road, enter at Cub Lake trailhead, camp near Cub Lake. Day 2 - Hike to Odessa Lake. then backtrack towards the Fern Lake trailhead, camping at Arch Rock, about halfway between The Pool and the Fern Lake trailhead. Day 3 - Hike the last 1.5 miles out to Fern Lake trailhead where the car is parked.
Easy, right? Unfortunately, nature had other plans.
About a mile onto the Cub Lake trail, we stopped to take some pictures of this little moose family, when we noticed some movement in the background, back on the treeline. About 300 yards away, there was a mama bear with her 2 cubs. Amazing! But wait, isn’t she walking directly toward the trail…
The bears had wandered right onto the trail, then disappeared behind a large boulder. Jared VERY CAREFULLY scouted ahead, making lots of noise and trying to see if we could get a visual on the bears. Unfortunately, he couldn’t ever get eyes on them and we didn’t want to risk startling a mama bear with her cubs so…
Luckily, we had made some friends on the trail, and they gave us a ride from the Cub Lake trailhead up to the Fern Lake trailhead. Thanks Stephanie and Sam!
We had been on the Fern Lake trail for maybe 5 minutes when a whole group of hikers came barreling back up towards the trailhead.
MORE. BEARS.
They had seen a bear about 10 ft off the trail and slowly backed away, then when they had created a safe distance, they booked it out of there. After a little discussion, Jared and I decided to push forward. There was no other way to get to our campsite, and at least this bear was alone with no cubs, so it was less likely to fight. Besides, we were hoping that the large group that had just passed us had scared it off. By the grace of God, we never spotted that bear. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a 3 mile hike to our campsite turned into more like 6 miles. I guess I should have seen this coming. This area of the park is literally called Bear Lake…
At nearly 7pm, we finally got to set up camp and eat dinner. Day 1: mercifully, done.
The next morning, we backtracked to The Pool, where Jared washed our breakfast dishes, then headed out toward Fern Lake and Odessa Lake.
I have seen a lot of alpine lakes at this point, but nothing prepared me for the beauty of the trail up to Odessa Lake.
Odessa Lake is famous for elk sightings, especially in the early morning. We didn’t see any on this trip, but we did notice that there is a backcountry campsite up there. I think another overnight hike and a sunrise over that lake is in our future.
We arrived at our second campsite, Arch Rock, at about 4 pm. I was pretty exhausted from lugging all my gear, as evidenced by the fact that I fell asleep at 6 pm, in BROAD DAYLIGHT, and forgot to get a picture of our campsite. There were rocks, they were arched. Use your imagination.
I give this hike 8/10 socially distanced bear sightings.
As we continued south towards Texas, we made a quick stop in Colorado Springs to see the Garden of the Gods.
Garden of the Gods is free, and definitely worth a visit. However, after two weeks of epic vistas all across the US, it was a little too tame for us? Does that make us sound like hiking snobs? I’m sorry, but look at the dirt on Jared’s shirt. We had SEEN THINGS. If you’re looking for a nice walk with some cool rock formations, go for it! We were perhaps a bit more impressed with our dinner. If you ever find yourself in Colorado Springs, I highly recommend checking out The Rabbit Hole.
I give this underground eatery 9/10 chocolate dipped bacon strips.
After one more night in the Amarillo Walmart parking lot, we finally arrived home! At the time I’m writing this, we’ve been back for about two months, and I’m already itching for another adventure. But before we set out again, I think it’s time for an upgrade from the Mazda CX-5 car camping set-up…