Emerald Lake is one of the more popular hikes - it is just 3.8 miles round trip, and it is full of wonderous scenery. On this hike we saw Nymph Lake, Dream Lake and Emerald Lake. Bear Lake is right at the start of the trail. There are also fine views of Longs Peak and up to Hallett Peak. The trail is not steep, and it was a nice day. This was the most people we saw on any of the hikes we did, but it was not crowded. It's great to see so many people enjoying our National Parks. The first lake is Nymph Lake. This lake is so shallow that lily pads grow to the surface. Dream Lake is the second in the series. Dream Lake offers some classic views - it is a gorgeous lake, and the craggy pinnacle of Hallett's Peak looms in the background, so it makes for some nice photographs. Emerald Lake also offers some nice scenery of lakes and mountains. It certainly is worth the short hike up to see it. At Emerald Lake there is a crowd of ground squirrels and birds hoping for handouts. Even though visitors are not supposed to feed the wild animals, it is clear that not everyone obeys the park rules. Indeed, while we were there, a man standing near us pulled out a jar of almonds, apparently thinking he would get an easy photo of the cute ground squirrel if he fed it first. The squirrel took the almond and aggressively returned for more. The squirrel ended up running all around the guy, jumping on his arms, even climbing up his back and over his shoulders - the squirrel was too close and too fast to even get photos. So feeding the squirrel did not pay off. We were quite surprised when we drove back into Estes Park to discovered that is had rained in the short time that we had been out hiking to Emerald Lake. The sky did not seem ominous, yet the ground was wet. We bought a pizza from Cheesy Lee's and ate in our room while watching Thursday night football. The game was between the Ravens and the Broncos, and was played in Denver. The game was delayed for half an hour due to nearby lightning strikes - by now we were quite familar with late afternoon storms coming out of the mountains. This is the hiking map posted at the Bear Lake parking lot. We had already been here once before, for our hike up to Flattop Mountain and Hallett Peak.  We saw this guy beside the road as we drove back to town. 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.    
   
   
 
|
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. Emerald Lake Photos
|