When I first started planning our trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, I thought we would do the hike up to Longs Peak. But as I continued to read about the trail, I changed my mind. There have been 65 deaths from people hiking up to Longs Peak, including one young man who died in August of 2013, just a month before our trip. Once we got into the park and saw how dramatic and sudden the afternoon thunderstorms are (6 of the people who have died on Longs Peak were struck by lightning), I decided that it would be too scary to make the climb. As it turned out, the day that we hiked up to Chasm Lake there wasn't any rain, but I am still glad we decided to "only" hike to Chasm Lake. Chasm Lake itself is a worthy hike - 8.4 miles roundtrip with nearly 2500 feet of elevation gain. Plus, the sight of the mountain lake ringed by towering peaks is quite nice. We got an early start and were on the trail as the sun rose. The trail climbs relentlessly, but it isn't too steep. Once we got above the trees, we enjoyed nice views of the mountains. I was surprised that with just our naked eyes we could make out tiny white dots of people way up at the top of Longs Peak - I think the traditional hiking route takes you around the back (western) side of the mountain, so the people we spotted might have been rock climbers that we spotted. Perhaps it was due to our early start, but we didn't see anyone else at Chasm Lake. We did see a few other people on the trail, but perhaps they headed off to the Keyhole and subsequently went up to Longs Peak. Below Chasm Lake there is a small plateau that juts out over the Peacock Pool. There is a small ranger station located there also. We explored a bit in that area after our visit to Chasm Lake. We finished our hike before lunch, we were back at our car by 1 PM. So we drove down to Lily Lake and ate lunch there, and then decided to do the hike to Emerald Lake that afternoon. I took this trail map photo from the sign posted at the Chasm Lake trail head.  Here is a video of Columbine Falls, which flows down from Chasm Lake. If your browser pops up a box at the top of your screen asking for permission to run the Quicktime video, or at the bottom of the screen asking permission to run ActiveX content, click the OKAY to permit the Quicktime movie to run. If you see a big blue Q, the video content is still downloading from the website. When an image appears, double click to start playing the short movie. Panning across Chasm Lake, showing the mountains surrounding it.    
   
   
 
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Single click on any thumbnail to open photo in new window. (You don't need to close the previous photo to click a new thumbnail.) Place your cursor over any thumbnail to see the picture title. Chasm Lake Photos
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