Bridal Veil Falls

We haven't been hiking since our fall colors trip to New England, and this weekend was the last weekend for the foreseeable future with nice summer-like weather. Estes Park had a forecasted high of 72°F, which is perfect hiking weather. With the following weekends forecasted at least 20°F lower than that, we knew we had to enjoy the weather while we could. I think the next time we hike we'll be needing snowshoes, or at least spikes.

We picked Bridal Veil Falls because it's been on our list to hike for a little while now. It's technically in Rocky Mountain National Park, although it's outside the pay gate. We have an annual pass, but we haven't done this hike yet because up until late October, you had to have a reservation just to enter Rocky Mountain National Park. I'm sure that no one was verifying the reservations since this area is outside of the pay gate for the park, but we stayed away from it just in case.

We got to the trailhead around 1 in the afternoon which was quite late considering that this morning was Day Light Savings, so we effectively started the hike at 2 PM. We only had about 4 hours of daylight left, but that wasn't a problem since this 6+ mile hike with 1,000 feet of elevation gain only took about 3 hours to complete. The hike wasn't too difficult, but we weren't used to hiking at elevation as opposed to when we were hiking last in New England. The elevation definitely takes its toll in the form of having to stop to catch your breath every so often, but it was nice to be hiking back in our mountains in our state.