A Day At the Lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park

Lake Country at 8500 feet above sea level

Rocky Mountain National Park.  7/22/2013:   Back home, I usually don't huff and puff to get to the lake.  In fact, it has been my experience that lakes are usually in low spots.  Not so out here.  Lakes in the Rockies are high.  Generally an artifact of the glacier, they're like chains of ponds among the mountains--at least, that's how it works in this instance.

  My first stop after breakfast today was Bear Lake, a popular spot in the Moraine Park area.  Even though I got there at about 7:30AM, the parking lot was nearly full.  The thought occurred to me that I would love to have the amount of money all the cars and cameras in this park are worth at any given moment.  Talk about rich!  

  Anyway..

  This is Bear:

  Check the scenery you can view from that bench. 

   You can walk all the way around Bear Lake at a leisurely pace--good thing, too, because you have to stop every twenty paces or so to take another picture.  At least, that's how it works with me.

   A Park Ranger once told me that any hike he ever took in the mountains was  two miles up and one mile down.  It sure seemed like that today.  I trudged off from Bear to the next nice pond, Nymph Lake, which, the sign assured me, was only a half mile up.  It seemed a lot more than that..but it was a pretty walk, nevertheless:

                        I love sunny spots in the woods.  Don't you?

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         Nymph Lake is smaller than Bear..but it's got water lilies..flocks of 'em.

    These small lakes are bracketed by three 12-thousand foot peaks; Hallett, Otis and Flattop..and what that means to a photographer is reflections.

   That's Hallett Peak there, seen at/in Nymph Lake.  And isn't it gorgeous?

      Well, after all the admiring was done and all the pictures were collected, it was time to shove off.  Needless to say the trip downhill was a lot faster..and easier..than the trip up:

  Like the man said:  "Two miles up, one mile down."  

  I just coasted.

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    I'm off to my friends, Jackie and Larry, in Steamboat Springs, CO tomorrow.  I don't know when I'll post the next Footnote..but keep checking.  Who knows what happens next?

   Seeya down the trail.

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7/22/2013