Leslie and David's Wanderings: 15 May 2019 Critters Galore

After the Bierstadt Lake hike, we decided we needed something a bit longer, to stretch our legs. Based on the information we had gotten from the Ranger on Sunday, and since Leslie was not up for another trudge through the snow, we decided to do a loop which starts out on the Fern Lake trail to ‘The Pool” and then come back on the Cub Lake trail. When we got to the trailheads, we found most of the parking full, but we found a parking spot about halfway between the Fern Lake Trailhead and the Cub Lake Trailhead. We had to walk down the dirt road, dodging cars and trucks to the Fern Lake Trailhead. The Fern Lake trail follows a meandering Big Thompson River that was rushing pretty full and fast from the snow melting off. The temperatures were a perfect mid 60’s for hiking. The trail climbs all the way from the trailhead to “the Pool” but it is spread out over 2.5 miles so it was not difficult. The trail wandered into forest and open slopes and was quite pleasant. There were a fair number of people on this trail, but not enough to be annoying. We saw one fisherman walking back on the trail and he said the fishing had not been good because the creek was running too fast with runoff.

When we got to the bridge that crosses the Big Thompson just below “the Pool”. The Pool was just a small waterfall with a small pool below it. Actually disappointing from what we had expected. We stopped there and had a snack. Leslie could not help herself, despite David’s warnings it was illegal, and fed nuts to the little chip monks that came snooping around for handouts. They were so tame, they would come up to her hand and take the nut out of her fingers. Obviously Leslie was not the only one who had fed them.

After feeding the critters, we headed out on Cub Lake trail. The first part of the hike was a climb through a dead forest. Some of the trees look like they might have died from beetles, others had obviously been through a forest fire. The climb was not very steep but it was enough to slow us down and make us stop to catch our breath at these high altitudes. Leslie began to question if there actually was a lake, and then we popped up over the ridge and there it was. Cub Lake is named after the bigger Bear Lake. It looks to be fairly shallow and we could see water lilies trying to recover from the winter freeze. Forest all the way around the lake had suffered the ravages of beetles and forest fire. But the beautiful snow capped peaks in the background still made it a pretty sight. It was apparent that the snow up on the peaks was melting off quickly and David held out hope that we still might be able to hike to Emerald Lake before we left.

From Cub Lake, the trail descended steeply for ¾ of a mile. The trail was very rocky and had some big drop offs to descend. We could not decide if going down was worse than going up this portion of the trail. Then the trail leveled out into a gentle descent. A couple going up the trail whispered that there was some moose just around the curve. Sure enough as we came around the next curve in the trail, a meadow pond came into view and in the middle was a moose cow eating and closer to shore was a baby moose. Leslie had never seen a moose before. The mother was huge, standing in the middle of the pond, dipping her head into the water to pull up vegetation from the bottom. The baby was in shallower water making unsteady steps and imitating her mother. It was quite a scene! About this time Leslie’s cell phone battery died as she took photos (we must remember to put our phones in airplane mode on these hikes so the batteries don’t run down search for a cell signal). Once again the clouds began closing in and spitting rain as we dragged ourselves away from the Mother and Baby moose and wandered on down the trail. We had not gone very far when Leslie pointed up hill. Standing on a rocky knoll was a magnificent Bull Elk with a velvet covered rack of horns! Nearby was a wild turkey looking through the grass for its next meal. David snapped away worrying his cell battery would soon die and he would lose his trail recording. Around the next curve of the trail we came across another moose standing in a lake eating!!! This was critter central! As we continued down we came to a grassy area where two muskrats were climbing over rocks looking for food. And if it couldn’t get any better than that, just down the trail was a herd of Elk Cows grazing in a beautiful meadow! What a great ending to a wonderful hike. We definitely felt this hike a bit more than the previous hike (knees, feet, hips and muscles!), but it was by far the best hike we have had since we started out on this journey. Hike statistics: 6.3 miles, 745 ft elevation, 1,827 calories burned, total time 4 hours and 30 minutes. Critter sights: Ducks, Elk, Moose, wild Turkey, Muskrats and cute Chipmonks.

Following our hike, we drove into town to pick up a few supplies for dinner. David popped into the hardware store and bought a socket that would fit the new nut for the Big Foot. We also needed some Whiskey to sooth away our aches and pains!