A friend and I headed up to Boulder to do this hike on a Saturday morning in late May. We arrived in the late morning and discovered that the parking lot and streets surrounding the park to be completely full. We had to park a couple blocks away and walk to the park before we even started the hike. I’ve been Chautauqua Park on a week day and it’s considerably quieter.

As to be expected from the parking situation, we met a lot of other hikers on the trail and up at the arch. It definitely is a popular place on a nice weekend despite being a fairly demanding hike. Many hikers brought their pets, all of which were very well-behaved and friendly. It was fun to watch the smaller dogs scamper up the rocks.

The views from the arch are spectacular. You can see from Boulder and beyond to the north and all the way to Denver to the south. The arch itself is pretty impressive and there are plenty of good size boulders beneath it to climb up and sit on to admire the views. Watch for the chipmunks scurrying around at your feet for some added entertainment.

I attempted this hike twice in the month of May. The first attempt occurred on May 7th and failed due to deep snow up near Calypso Cascades. The snow was 3ft deep at the bridges crossing the cascades and only got deeper from there after. I didn’t have snowshoes along and I was sinking in up to my knees so I aborted the hike and tried again three weeks later. By then, all the snow was gone all the way to Ouzel Falls.

The second attempt had its share of challenges too. Shortly after reaching Copeland Falls, it started to rain. Then, the rain changed to sleet. Then, to hail. I hid under some pine trees and tried to stay dry. The storm only lasted 15 minutes or so and then the sun came back out. I dried out and continued my trek.

Calypso Cascades are not as immpressive as they sound. The area is strewn with fallen logs, making the hillside look like a mess. I found it hard to come up with a pleasing composition when photographing them as a whole. I did better by zooming in to small sections of the cascades that were clear of debris.

If you stay on the trail, you won’t get a very good view of Ouzel Falls. To get a better look, scamper up the rocks to the left of the bridge and circle around to view the falls head on. This is where I got most of my pictures of the falls.

There are not a lot of panoramic views along this hike, but the waterfalls and numerous opportunities to view the rapids and cascades along the various creeks you follow and cross more than make up for it.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine came to visit me in Denver. On the first day of her stay, I took her to Rocky Mountain National Park because nothing says Colorado like RMNP. We started from the Beaver Meadows entrance (point A on map below) and stopped at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center to check out the road and trail conditions. From there we headed over to the Endovalley picnic area to park. (Point B on the map is the entrance to Old Fall River Road. Google Maps thinks this one way, which fouled up the driving directions.) Old Fall River Road was closed past this point so we parked and hiked up the road to Chasm Falls. During the summer months, you can drive up to the falls.

After exploring the falls, we returned to our car and drove back to Trail Ridge Road. The visitor center had posted that Trail Ridge Road was closed at Rainbow Curve. However, upon reaching the curve’s pullout, we discovered that the barrier was open and we could continue on to the Forest Canyon Trailhead (point C). From Rainbow Curve to the trailhead, there was plenty of snow on the ground. In some places, there was still 10ft or more! I would love to see how the plows push through that much snow. They obviously do, because the road was completely clear. After hiking the short Forest Canyon Overlook Trail through the snow, we headed back to Estes Park, stopping at a couple other pull-outs we had skipped on the way up.

The slideshow shows images from Chasm Falls, Old Falls Road, and various pull-outs along the journey. Since I wasn’t tracking with my GPS for most of the trip, I couldn’t do my traditional trek report, but I felt the trip was interesting enough to warrant a post and video. I’ll be returning to RMNP in the future for more traditional treks.

I wasn’t really impressed with this hike. The scenery was nothing special when compared to other hikes in the area such as the Trading Post Trail at Red Rocks. There aren’t many panoramic views of the area and much of the trail is though fairly open and barren terrain. There is a small creek running through the gulch, but it heavily overgrown in most spots and hard to see. I did hike this trail early in the spring before anything had a chance to green up, which may have contributed to my negative impression of the place. It’s possible that the area could be filled with wildflowers later in the season and it would have been much prettier had the aspen been leafing. There were also many fallen trees across the trail in the forest, making travel difficult in spots. Hopefully, trail maintainers will remove them later in the spring.

The trail was heavily used by mountain bikers so I had to be constantly alert and prepared to get out of their way. There are several blind curves where the bikers appeared suddenly from behind me on the way out. Since it was down hill, they were moving quite fast and I only had moments to step out of the way. Be careful.

On a positive note, I did get to see several mule deer and a herd of elk on the trek. That’s always exciting!

The waterfalls on this trek are not large. They only drop several feet. But, they are pretty nonetheless and add some variety to the scenery on the hike. The rest of the hike consists primarily of trails through heavy forest, rock formations, and some open prairies. I found myself getting a little bored with the terrain during the last mile or two…but, maybe I was just getting tired. There are some panoramic views of the surrounding valleys, but nothing that I would call really spectacular. Still, it’s a nice hike.

The drive from Boulder to the trailhead was almost as interesting as the hike itself. Heading up Flagstaff Road, you encounter numerous hairpin turns as you climb up the mountain. You’ll also run into many bikers (hopefully, not literally) also making the climb. The are some nice views of Boulder as you travel. Parking in these areas is not free, however, as it is part of the Boulder Mountain Parks system.

Although the trail starts out pretty tame, it quickly became challenging as I entered the forest and started climbing. The path became rocky, uneven, and zigzagged constantly as I climbed. I loved it! I especially liked scampering across the boulders at the rock slide and climbing a small rock wall midway up the mountain using the hand and toe holds carved into the rock. Since I was shooting video, I had to do it several times in order to get the footage and retrieve my camera.

The views of the Colorado flatlands east of the Rockies are excellent. I could make out downtown Denver in the distance when looking south and could see all of Boulder when looking north. Only when you reach the top do you get to see views of the Rockies west of your location.

I ran into some lingering snow on the trail in the higher elevations. Since most of the trail falls on the north side of the mountain, this was expected. There were several areas with an inch or two on the trail which made things a little slippery, but, all in all, it wasn’t bad. It should all be gone in a few more weeks.

I chose this hike as my first trek in the Denver area because I knew that trees were fairly scarce in this area and the resulting images would still look nice even though spring hasn’t fully arrived in the region. Even the trees that are present in the park look rather cool against the red rocks due to their bleached white color. I knew I could work with it and get some nice images. As it gets warmer in the summer, I can see this being a very hot hike due to the lack of overhead vegetation to give you cover. However, it is rather short, so you could easily hike it an hour or so before sunset to avoid the heat.