Bear, Nymph, Dream, and Emerald Lake
Today we headed into Rocky Mountain National Park again for the 4th time this summer. We decided to do the most popular hike in all of Rocky Mountain National Park; the hike to Emerald Lake. It starts at the Bear Lake trailhead, and you pass two other lakes along the way (Nymph Lake and Dream Lake). On our way back, we stopped by Bear Lake (since it's 250 feet from the trail head). Of all the four lakes we hiked to, Nymph Lake was our favorite because of the wild Lillies floating in the water. The weather was pretty good, upper 60's, but it was pretty windy at the lakes.
The the whole hike was a little over 3.5 miles long and a little over 1,000 feet of elevation gain. The lakes were spaced out about a half-mile from each other, so it didn't take very long to get to the last lake. Total hiking time was 2 hours and 22 minutes from start to finish.





Partial Moon
The moon is working it's way up to being full for the solar eclipse on August 21st. You can see part of Hallett Peak poking out above the trees.

Nymph Lake
This lake was katherine and my favorite because of all of the wild Lilies.

Clouds Rolling In
I took this photo on the way back from the hike, so the photo is out of order in the album. But I thought it would be better to put all the similar locations together to have consistency.

Hidden Behind Trees
You can see Nymph Lake hidden in the trees. Katherine and I went off the trail a little bit on top of a rock to find this location to take some photos.

Elk On a Hike
As we were leaving Nymph Lake, we found an elk hiking along the trail.

On the Edge

Flowing Water
We were following Tyndall Creek for a good majority of the hike. There were several small cascades along the hike.

Tall Grass

Over the Bridge
There were a few bridges on the hike that we had to cross.

Hallett Peak
Throughout the hike, there were several great views of Hallett Peak.

Dream Lake

Setting Moon
The moon set behind Hallett Peak after we passed Dream Lake around 10:45.

Over the Rocks

3 Little Bugs

By the River
We stopped by a cascade along the hike. This was my favorite spot on the hike, it was just gorgeous!

Rapids

Emerald Lake
We finally reached the end of the hike, Emerald Lake. It was extremely windy, so we didn't stay for long. We couldn't find a spot that was shaded from the wind, so we turned around and decided to stop back at Dream Lake to eat our snack.

Blurred Hallett Peak
For some reason, I really like taking these types of photos with the subject fully blurred and part of the trees in full focus.

Color Changing
It's almost like it's fall time! Except that these trees typically don't change color... So I'm not sure what's going on here.

In the Valley
Between Dream and Emerald Lakes, there was a valley that opened up, allowing me to take this photo.

Bear Lake
This was by far, our least favorite lake. There were way too many tourists (which was expected). Since it's only 250 feet from the parking lot, there were a lot of people there. It was loud and cramped - it didn't feel like hiking... But that's why we only stayed for a minute and got back on the bus to take us to our car.