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Geoff Weatherford (geoffw)  > Colorado Trail Hiking > Mill Creek Trail, RMNP, October 18, 2008
This is a late fall hike up Mill Creek in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Please go to my trail blogging site (opens a new window) for a full description of the trip.
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Geoff Weatherford (geoffw) > Moraine Park
This fall in northern Colorado has been "mild".  Just one long September (well, the leaves changed, but the weather stayed warmish).  So, one Saturday I got up, took it easy, did a few chores, and decided it was just too nice to stay in town.  Headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park looking for a good hike.
Geoff Weatherford (geoffw) > There was really no snow in the mountains yet, it was very close to shorts and tshirt weather, so I headed up to Bear Lake to hike up Glacier Gorge (or, somewhere up there).  Unfortunately, about 10 million people had the same idea.  I couldn't even make it into the Bear Lake parking lot.  So, no problem.  See.  There is a neat thing about national parks.  They can be really crowded at times, but normally only in the few well known places (Bear Lake definitely being one of those places).  But, everywhere else in the park can be pretty uncrowded.  So, I pulled into a place along the Bear Lake road I'd never stopped at before to take a look at the hiking possibilities.
Hmmmm.  Yah.  Looked nice to me : )  This is a pano of two photos.  Looking up Mill Creek from the Hollowell Park trailhead.
Geoff Weatherford (geoffw) > Now, I can't say that I didn't see any other people on the trail.  I did.  Like, maybe 12 people during the entire hike.  But, compare that to the 10 million up at Bear Lake and, well, it's like I was back in the wilderness.  This turned out to be a GREAT hike.  And would be an incredible place a little earlier in the fall when the fall colors were max'd out.  But even today, there was enough "color" to make it quite pretty.

Here is a shot of the trailhead sign.  Checking the map I could see that the area had the potential for some nice loops.  I partook of a short loop today, but the other trails that offered a loop are 8 miles in length, so I'll have to come back and do them some other time.  I only went for around 4 miles today.  This is also a great trail for kids.  Lots of flat wide open places.  And the trail spends most of its time pretty close to a stream.
Geoff Weatherford (geoffw) > Here is a shot of the parking lot.  Believe me, that's pretty sparse compared to what I had just seen up at Bear Lake : )
Geoff Weatherford (geoffw) > I did hit some limitations with my camera today.  The photos above are later in the day (end of the hike) when the clouds had cleared off.  But at the beginning, it was kinda lightly overcast.  Which meant I could get good exposure of the ground or the sky, but not both at the same time.  So, tough shooting with my current camera.

I'm pretty sure I've seen this mountain before.
Geoff Weatherford (geoffw) > Zoom in on that.  Some of the very high country had a little snow on it from earlier snow storms.
Geoff Weatherford (geoffw) > Playing around with a dead tree and Longs.
Geoff Weatherford (geoffw) > Decided to see what it would look like black and white (since I was having trouble with my exposures).  Not too bad.
Geoff Weatherford (geoffw) > Several views of looking up Hollowell Park.
Moraine Park
This fall in northern Colorado has been "mild". Just one long September (well, the leaves changed, but the weather stayed warmish). So, one Saturday I got up, took it easy, did a few chores, and decided it was just too nice to stay in town. Headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park looking for a good hike.
 > Moraine Park
This fall in northern Colorado has been "mild".  Just one long September (well, the leaves changed, but the weather stayed warmish).  So, one Saturday I got up, took it easy, did a few chores, and decided it was just too nice to stay in town.  Headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park looking for a good hike.
Moraine Park
This fall in northern Colorado has been "mild". Just one long September (well, the leaves changed, but the weather stayed warmish). So, one Saturday I got up, took it easy, did a few chores, and decided it was just too nice to stay in town. Headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park looking for a good hike.
Camera: Olympus Corporation (C770uz) |
More details: exif |
Original size: 3000px x 1806px |
Current: 400px x 241px |
Other sizes: Small • M • L |
filename: PA180111_cropped_twice |
Keywords: rocky park hike mountain colorado creek national mill trails rmnp hollowell rmnp trails
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