Rocky Mountain Hike

A Hike in the Rocky Mountains

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I arrived at Rocky Mountain National Park searching for peace, quiet and seclusion around one thirty in the afternoon, about an hour and half later than I had planned. I showed my pass at the entrance booth and asked the attendant if there were any campsites still available in the Timber Creek Campground which is where I had made up my mind that I wanted to stay even though I had never been to the park before.

The attendant recommended that I get a site right away because all the campgrounds usually fill up in the afternoon. I decided to follow the man’s advice and immediately drove thirty miles through a dense evergreen forest to reach the campground.

I was kind of disappointed when I arrived at the campground. There were about two hundred campsites right along the busy road through the park. Although the sites were fairly well spread out and located under the canopy of evergreen trees, there were no privacy barriers to speak of and it was not the rustic out-of-the-way camp that I was expecting.

I found a suitable site on a corner which gave me more room between my neighbors and then rode my bicycle down to the pay station and back. When I returned I noticed that there was no less that six bicycles in the campsite next to mine and I wondered if I could have picked a spot with a neighboring site with less people. I also noticed that I had picked a spot in the RV area and that generators were allowed to be run until eight thirty at night. Nevertheless, I thought I had picked the best site I could find and hoped for a quiet night in camp.

It was approaching two o’clock in the afternoon and I decided that I would like to go on a hike if I could make it back to camp around six. I thought that if I should be delayed on my hike, I would still have a few hours of sunlight left in which to make my way back. I decided that I should be able to hike around ten miles in the four hour allotted time. As luck would have it the park literature showed a five mile long trail to a high mountain lake not far from the campground.

Figure 1 – Rocky Mountain Park Map

I had never been to the Rocky Mountain National Park before and so was unsure of what it had in store for me. I donned long pants, hiking boots, a long sleeved shirt, a sweatshirt, a floppy brimmed hat, a two liter hydration pack, and a fanny pack with an apple, an emergency quart of water, and an emergency raincoat. I knew I was probably over-prepared for the hike, but I always try to prepare for the worst. Then if the worst did not happen, I would lose nothing. But if something unexpected did occur, I would be prepared for it.

It was a relatively cool August afternoon when I parked my car at the Timber Lake Trailhead. The sky overhead was clear but I could just make out the edges of some dark thunder clouds in the east which was the direction the trail would take me. My view of the sky and the horizon was limited due to the surrounding mountainsides and tall trees. I heard some thunder in the distance and immediately I went over a plan of action should I get caught in a thunder and lightning storm. I had a lightweight waterproof jacket should it start to rain, so my only concern would be finding a place to avoid the lightning bolts. I felt I was well-prepared should my luck not hold out and so I proceeded into the forest.

I was welcomed by the sounds of birds twittering in the trees and rushing water from a nearby creek. The trail was steep with no level spots for resting. I had made up my mind to hike as fast as I could to test my conditioning. I had been walking five or more miles a day in the park near my house for the previous week and had lost a lot of weight. I felt good and strong as I marched my way up the hill with my aluminum walking stick propelling me on.

I crossed over a wide stream and then entered a peaceful forest while still climbing steeply uphill. I met a woman about my age coming back from the lake. I am always amazed to see other single hikers, especially women, on the trail. I see so many warnings against hiking alone, I used to think it was a rarity but experience has changed my mind. It seems hikers don’t enjoy carpooling any more than commuters.

The woman looked as if she didn’t have a drop of sweat on her and yet my shirt was already drenched. She wore short pants and sneakers and carried a single quart bottle of water and probably weighed half what I did. I reassured myself that extra weight I carried was the price I paid for being prepared for anything.

I continued uphill at what I considered a phenomenal pace for me even though I had no way of knowing how far or long I had hiked. I had left my GPS Unit at home, but did not regret it. It would have just been more weight.

After what I estimated at the time to be about a mile and a half of walking, the trail finally leveled off a little and I took a short break to catch my breath. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest and waited for it to settle down before continuing. This was not the steepest hill I had climbed. Actually, I felt like the grade was just right. It was not too steep and yet it got me up the hill at a good pace. If I had not been pushing myself, I would probably not have stopped to rest at all.

I knew the trail gained two thousand feet in elevation over its five mile length. I guessed that at this point I had already covered about a thousand feet in elevation and so hoped the trail would level off some the rest of the way. I pressed on as the trail meandered through the peaceful forest. Sometimes it ran along a babbling brook, other times it headed up a rocky hillside. I met a few other travelers on their way back. None of them seemed to have expended any effort to get where they were.

I pressed on. I knew that at around the three and a half mile mark, the trail split off and that I must be nearing that point. I trudged on and on for what seemed like ages. Sweat was streaming down my face and my hair was soaked through under my hat. I pushed myself harder than I can ever remember pushing. Surely, the fork in the road must be just around the corner, I kept telling myself.

But the fork never seemed to come. I was exhausted. I wanted to quit and turn around. Someone had played a cruel joke and marked the map wrong, I said to myself. Then just as I was about to lose all hope, a group of four young men appeared on the trail ahead. They wore spotless white T-shirts and khaki shorts. I made way for them on the trail while trying to control my breathing and keep the sweat out of my eyes.

“You’re not too far away,” the lead man said with a cheery tone and a big smile. “Only one point seven miles to go.”

I nodded knowingly at the group and then continued on my way. Around the corner I found the fork in the trail with a sign giving one point seven miles as the remaining distance to the lake.

I was bushed. For a second, I debated as to whether I should go on. Then there was no debate. I was in good shape. I was a good hiker, prepared for anything. I would make it to the lake and in record time.

I pressed on. The trail became steep again. There were several signs pointing to back country campsites along the way. Had I done my research, these would have been perfect sites to camp at rather than the developed RV site I had chosen. I pressed through the forest and then suddenly the trees were gone.

I had arrived at an open snow meadow filled with three foot tall green grass and dotted with vibrantly colored wildflowers. I paused for a moment to take in the scene and catch my breath. Then I continued on for a few steps where I found a signpost that had been knocked to the ground. The signs on the post indicated the direction to two backcountry campgrounds but said nothing of the lake.

I continued on the trail for a couple of hundred feet or so where I came to an outdoor privy for use by the backcountry campers. I used the facilities which were much needed at the time and returned to the trail. Then I started to wonder if I had read the downed signpost correctly. I decided to walk all the way back to the sign and verify that I was headed in the right direction. This cost me time and energy that I would never get back. I determined that I was headed in the right direction and continued down the trail along the snow meadow.

Next I came upon two older gentlemen coming back from the lake. One of the men informed me that I was getting close. Neither gentleman looked like they had broken a sweat, yet I could feel my own perspiration soaking into my clothes.

The trail led back into the forest for a short time and then emerged into another meadow. I looked up and out of the corner of my eye I saw a large, black furry object not more than twenty feet away. I immediately matched the pattern of the object with that of the black bear I had run into on a trail in Glacier Park years ago. My heart sank down into my stomach as I prepared to back up on the trail.

I looked directly at the object and to my surprise found it was a baby moose. The animal was a good six feet tall and eight feet long but I could tell that it was still a baby because it had the mannerisms and gangliness of a new born foal. I watched the large baby peacefully grazing for a moment and then I continued on my way.

I had not taken more than ten steps when I walked by a large bush which had been blocking my view of the trail ahead. To my surprise, the baby’s mother was quietly grazing on the wildflowers behind the bush not more than a couple of yards from the trail. This moose had the same dark fur of its offspring but was closer to eight feet tall and ten feet long. She took no notice of me as I walked within a few feet of it on the trail. I was just glad I had not stumbled out of the forest between the mother and baby as the mother may not have been so polite in that situation.

I felt good about my adventure. I no longer cared how fast I had made it up the mountain or how much water I had lost through perspiration. Coming so close to such a wonderful scene made it all worth while.

I continued up the trail. My mood had lightened so much that I felt as if I was almost skipping along the dirt path. I passed another backcountry campground and a nearby babbling brook. Finally, I climbed up a steep embankment and found myself in another wonderland. A signpost indicated that I had made it to Timber Lake at an altitude of just over eleven thousand feet.

The lake surface was perfectly smooth and the water perfectly clear. It was about a quarter of a mile long and an eighth of a mile wide. The lake was surrounded by dark gray, jagged cliffs towering a thousand feet above it. The babbling brook gently flowed out of the end of it through a meadow of tall green grass.

As I moved away from the stream to the lake shore the scene became perfectly quiet. I could have heard a pin drop on the other side of the lake as I sat on a smooth boulder dangling my tired, swollen feet into the icy water.

Sometimes when I reach the end of a long hike or journey, I question myself as to why I make such tiring, effortful trips. At the end of this journey there was no question in my mind that all my struggles had been worth the effort.

But just like the Grand Canyon which takes your breath away for an instant and then leaves you longing for more, I could not sit and stare at this Paradise indefinitely. I had to make it back to camp before dark.

I pulled my cell phone out of my pack and checked the time. To my disappointment instead of averaging over three miles per hour I had managed to average just over two miles per hour. It had taken me two hours and fifteen minutes to hike just over five miles. It was four thirty in the afternoon and I had no chance of making it back by six o’clock.

I put my boots back on, hitched up my pack and began the long walk home. At least I would be going downhill, I thought.

I had not gone more than ten feet down the steep ridge that led to the lake when I ran into two young men. They hardly looked dressed for a strenuous hike. They wore thin, dress shirts, short pants and tennis shoes and carried a single bottle of water. Neither of them looked like they had broken a sweat.

“Is the moose still up there?” one of them asked.

I told them that I had seen a moose farther down the trail and asked if they had not passed it near the last backcountry campsite. They said they had passed that point an hour ago. This seemed strange to me. They must have been up there in the trees the whole time I was at the lake, I thought.

One of the young men asked how far it was to the lake and I said it was just over the ridge. Then I continued on my way.

I wondered how it was that two young men could end up in the middle of nowhere without proper dress and equipment and have no idea where they were. Then I wondered about myself. These two men had accomplished the same glorious feat I had accomplished with less effort. The difference was that I could appreciate the feat more than they could, I thought.

I continued down the trail and came out of the woods where I had originally found the babbling brook not far from where I saw the moose. I looked up to see a man a few years younger than me with a metal saucepan in one hand and a plastic water bottle in the other. The man was walking through the tall grass towards the brook with his arms displayed in such a way as to lead me to believe that he was going to try to scoop water out of the brook with the pan and pour it into the bottle.

Behind the man were a teenaged boy and a teenaged girl. Still on the trail was a woman about ten years younger than I. I stared at the odd scene for a moment and then I realized that there was a moose drinking from the brook. The moose was no more than ten feet away from the man but the two were hidden from each other by a large boulder. Incredibly no one in the group knew that they were only a few yards away from one of North America’s largest and potentially dangerous mammals.

The man looked up at me on the trail and I pointed to the moose. By his actions he must have thought that I was indicating to him that he should go around the boulder because the access to the brook was better. As he moved around the boulder I said very calmly and quietly, “There’s a moose.” He immediately froze not more than five feet away from the massive animal.

“If it had been a snake it would have bit you,” I said. The woman and teenagers pointed and commented on the wild animal as I approached them on the trail.

When I came to the woman she asked me if there was anymore water up ahead on the trail. I turned to point up the trail and there I saw the baby moose near the brook. I wondered what would have happened if this family had stumbled between the mother and its baby.

I informed the woman that there was a lake up ahead on the trail.

“There’s a lake up there?” She questioned me in a surprised tone. I got the impression she had no idea that the trail she was on led to a lake.

This surprised me. After all, we were on Timber Lake Trail. I wondered if this young family had just stumbled upon the trailhead and begin walking without having any idea whether the trail led to a lake or to hell?

The woman thanked me for the information and I continued on my way; my accomplishment diminishing in my mind with every step. The two young men that I had met earlier were no more than fifteen minutes behind me when they reached the lake. The family could only have been more than a half hour behind me. Unless they pulled up to the trailhead just after I started hiking, these two groups had actually made it up the trail faster than I had when I was pushing myself as hard as I could. It was humiliating, I thought as I walked down the trail.

Then I started to wonder why the woman asked about water. I also wondered what the man was doing with the metal pan and bottle. Had they run out of water and were trying to replenish the bottle from the stream? Why would anyone go on a day hike with a metal saucepan? Were they already camped out at one of the backcountry campgrounds and looking for water to boil for dinner?

I feared that the most logical explanation was that they were on a day hike and had run out of water. I could have offered a few sips from my own supply but I did not have enough for five people. I sincerely hoped that they did not drink the water from the brook as I was sure they would be sick the next day. I knew that most mountain streams contain a virus known as giardia which can cause severe diarrhea and stomach cramps and lead to dehydration.

Still I continued on my way. I was too far away from the two groups to be of any assistance to them even if any were needed. My philosophy was that they had survived their entire life just fine without my help and they would probably survive this day without my help. I was sure they would not only survive but live to lead much more fulfilling and happy lives than I could ever dream of.

I made it back to camp by six thirty and the party next door was in full swing. There were several loud and rambunctious kids running around in the campsite next to mine with their loud, half-drunk uncles and fathers egging them on around the campfire. It was a scene that I was all too familiar with. In the past I had been the perpetrator of the scene and not the victim of it. I quietly read from my book to the sound of loud guffaws, startling shrieks and screams, and droning generator motors.

After dusk, I set up my tent and crawled inside for no other reason than to read my book by flashlight with a little privacy. Had I remembered to bring my headphones, I would have used them and my portable CD player to block out the city sounds in the country.

I wagered with myself that the people in the campground would have been just as happy making their shrieks and screams and drunken guffaws at their homes in the cities. The electricity loving, generator runners could have just as easily fallen asleep watching television on their couches at home. They seemed to have no appreciation for my desire to find peace and quiet and I seemed to have no appreciation for their desire to be part of a social group.

On the plus side, the thunderstorms never materialized and I got to see a moose and her calf up close as well as find peace and quiet at a high mountain lake, even if it was for only a few minutes. It seemed to me that I was rushing to find peace instead of slowing down and letting peace find me.

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