Yesterday, I once again headed for Rocky Mountain National Park for a hike. (In case you’re wondering why I keep going back to Rocky Mountain National Park, it’s because I’ve pretty much decided on concentrating the bulk of my hiking efforts in RMNP in 2010). Yesterday’s hike was a 6.2-mile loop starting at the Cub Lake trailhead and ending at the Fern Lake trailhead with a connecting 1-mile walk along a road back to my car. Due to the lower elevation (8080’ at the trailhead and 8620’ at the lake), the hike was totally doable without snowshoes or even traction devices (except for my little adventure on Cub Lake, which I’ll get to in a minute).
The route to Cub Lake travels along the western edge of Moraine Park and the northern edge of South Lateral Moraine and Steep Mountain. The glacial nature of the surrounding topography is very apparent along the way.
Glacial erratic with a view of Mt. Wuh, Sprague Mountain and Stones Peak
Rocks in a frozen beaver pond
Upon reaching the frozen, snow-covered lake, I failed to notice where the trail veered to the right to traverse a ridge above the lake. Instead, I followed some tracks that skirted along the edge of the lake. Not a good idea. Due to the deep snow, it was a slow and difficult slog to the west end of the lake, where I was sure I would find where the trail continued. I didn’t. So I slogged about halfway back toward the east and found a nice big flat rock to sit on to refuel, let my jeans dry and enjoy the view to the west of Sprague Mountain and Stones Peak. I was joined by a Steller’s Jay and a group of very gregarious Gray Jays.
Cub Lake
Steller's Jay
Steller's Jay in lodgepole pine killed by mountain pine beetles
Gray Jay
Gray Jay close-up
I have a particular fondness for Steller’s Jays and especially for Gray Jays and I confess to taking well over 500 pictures of the birds while sitting there on that rock. Let me know if you want to see the rest of them. 
During my respite on the rock, a group of hikers passed by along the ridge above me, so I brilliantly deduced that that was where the trail must be. After a quick scramble up the ridge, I found the trail and proceeded on my merry way.
From there, it was a long and fairly gradual and quite snowy decent into Forest Canyon with fantastic views of the aforementioned peaks and of the immense granite ridge to the north. There was an awesome frozen waterfall across the canyon and at the bottom of the canyon is a popular feature called The Pool. In her book Rocky Mountain National Park: The Complete Hiking Guide (a book I highly recommend), Lisa Foster describes The Pool as “a churning body of water cupped into a granite bowl carved out by the incessant swirling of the Big Thompson River.” I’m guessing it’s probably much more impressive in a less frozen state.
Frozen waterfall
The Pool
The rest of the way back to the car was a fairly level jaunt through a montane forest of lodgepole and Ponderosa pines, which is well on its way to being decimated by an infestation of mountain pine beetles. I’m not sure what the prognosis is, but it seems like there won’t be any pine trees left in Colorado within a few years. Sad. This makes it all the more imperative to me to photograph the beautiful mountains of Colorado before all the pine trees are gone.
