Cascade Falls and Beyond

(JOE POSTING)

After several gray days with intermittent rain, the weather began to improve and today, Saturday, we awoke to clear blue skies for our first hike of the season. Because we've only been here one week and aren't fully acclimated to the altitude, we decided not to overdo it. We chose the North Inlet Trail to Cascade Falls, 3.5 miles in, with a mere 300 feet in elevation gain. We hadn't done this hike in several years, when we hiked with Callae and Ed and their three boys, as well as our own three kids. Lots of complaints about the distance, boredom, etc. Here's a picture of Michael at the trail head, looking very happy.















The first twenty minutes of the trail are flat, open and fairly uninteresting, although we did cross private land and found two horses (four on the way down) happily munching on spring grass. After that, the trail enters the forest and starts gradually to rise. The wild flowers begin to appear.

Last summer, our dear friends Kathy and Dave spent almost two weeks with us in June; hiking with Kathy is like having your own personal naturalist along, and during those hikes, she imparted her knowledge and enthusiasm for the wild flowers of the Rockies, whether in Glacier National Park (where they are summering this year) or here in Rocky Mountain National Park (hereinafter to be abbreviated as "RMNP"). So now when we hike, in addition to looking up at the mountains and out into the forest, searching for moose and elk, we also look down at the forest floor. On this, our first hike of the season, we re-acquainted ourselves with the flowers Kathy had taught us to recognize last year, among them: Pussy Toes (both rosy and regular), Golden Smoke, Oregon Grape, Mountain Parsley, Star Solomonplume, Cow Parsnip, Spotted Coralroot (just coming up), Rock Clematis, and my two favorites:

Fairy Slipper (a member of the orchid family and fairly rare) and Flame Columbine (aka Western Red Columbine):
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About an hour or so in, the trail began to rise and the sound of rushing water grew louder. Another 20 minutes and we came upon the falls. The video doesn't quite do them justice as they continue upward for some distance.




We both felt we had energy left for more and so we continued into virgin territory for us. Although Cascade Falls is the most dramatic of them, the cascades continue for another couple of miles, with the trail mostly tracking the stream. We continued another mile and a half to a spot called Big Pool before we turned back. At that point, we could see snow on the mountaintops, the air had cooled, and the flowers were yet to bloom. It's one of the pleasures of hiking throughout the summer: as the weeks progress, flowers you saw at lower elevations in early June begin to bloom higher up in July. Here's a photo of Big Pool:


By the time we reached the trail head, we were very tried -- 5 hours and 10 miles round-trip -- but very happy. This is why we built a second home here in Grand Lake. We stopped at the post office and the market on the way home and got here just in time to watch Belmont coverage!