Did a long hike last weekend in Rocky Mountain national park's Wild Basin area with my brother. Total ended up around 17 miles, nearly 4k ft elevation gain, and about 4-5 miles of that was fully off trail and route finding. Was boots on trail at 0606, didn't get back to the car until 2009. Was pretty beat afterwards! Didn't get to spend as much time fully refining my compositions due to the distance needed, but was still reasonably happy with the results.
First stop, Thunder Lake.
From there, a rough social trail goes to Box lake. Actually saw a bear and a cub on the way here. First time seeing a bear in the wild! Only have a bad cell phone shot of it though, not worth posting here.
Another vague social trail goes from Box lake up to Eagle lake and spits you out on the northern shore.
From here, we bushwhacked to Eagle lake's eastern edge and followed the talus slope upwards and to the west. Stopped along the way to get a shot of Longs Peak.
Halfway up, came upon this unnamed pond.
From the south side of the pond looking at Longs Peak.
Another uphill section and finally made it to the primary destination of the day, Frigid lake and Moomaw glacier. Short break here with a sandwich.
Pano combo shot.
Vertical.
From above the glacier on the slope.
The rough plan was to decide on our route back from here depending on the sky. The forecast held a slight chance of rain and thunder, and while I don't mind getting rained on, I didn't want to be a crispy critter up on the tundra. Thankfully even though the sky was cloudy, there wasn't a hint of rain or thunder at the time. We pushed on south, over the pass to Isolation lake.
Getting closer to Isolation lake, trying to use the blue bell flowers in the shot.
From there it was a relatively easy descent to Pipit lake, with a few bushy areas to break through.
Lark pond followed quickly after that.
Last stop of the day was Bluebird lake, at which point the clouds were rolling back in with some drizzle, and some thunder was rumbling to the south. We were below treeline at this point, so I didn't feel like there was a risk. Still didn't linger, because the clouds were only getting heavier and the light wasn't going to improve on the lake.
Jim Dockery wrote:
Great results for a long fast day at altitude. What camera/lens were you using?
These were with an Olympus EM1 Mk2 with the 7-14 Pro lens. All but one were done via the tripod based hi-res mode. (One of the flower shots had the flower moving from the wind just a bit too much.)
Thanks for the tour.... very nice set.