CO Road-trip 2012: Day 6

In the morning, I headed out for another hike in the park. I drove to the Bear Lake Trailhead again to hike to Nymph, Dream, Emerald, and Haiyaha Lakes (description here). Before leaving the YMCA grounds I stopped to look at a group of elk feeding just off of the road. One of these was a fairly large bull that allowed me to take a few pictures and videos. In one video I was able to get him bugling. B couldn't join me on the hike because she was attending talks in the morning. I left our cabin about 30 minutes earlier than the day before and the Bear Lake parking lot was not as full as it had been. From the trailhead, I immediately began climbing towards Nymph Lake (below). Along the way I passed a few people and at Nymph Lake I passed some more. Beyond Nymph Lake the trail climbs further towards Dream Lake. There were plenty of people out on the trail and I passed a few more before reaching a trail junction just below Dream Lake. On my back I would take the left path to go to Haiyaha Lake. Shortly, I arrived at Dream Lake and took a short side-trail to the shore to take some pics. As I made my way along the northern shore of the lake back on the trail a couple asked me to take their picture and told me that they had just gotten engaged. This was the second engagement on the trail in consecutive days. What's up with people getting engaged out here? After taking their picture, I continued on to Emerald Lake. At Emerald Lake I had the lake to myself for about 5-10 minutes which was nice. I started heading back at the same time a few more groups of people were arriving. I hiked back past Dream Lake and hooked onto the Haiyaha Lake trail. Part way to the lake are a few really nice open viewpoints looking south and east. As I approached Haiyaha Lake I decided to try a different path than a man immediately ahead of me. I should have just followed him. I ended up climbing over a bunch of boulders and through a thick stand of trees just to realize that I wasn't getting any closer to the lake. I backtracked and got to the lake on the main trail. Haiyaha Lake (below) was nice but very windy. I only stayed at the shore for a few minutes before leaving. However, I did have the lake shore to myself for those few minutes. As I made my way back down the trail, I once again stopped and took in the great open views. Back at the trailhead, I jumped into the car and headed towards the cabin to have lunch with B for about 45 minutes before she had to get back to the conference. On my way back she told me (over the phone) that a group of elk were camped out about 50 yards from our cabin. When I got back to the cabin they were still there. It was the same group that I had seen in the morning when I was leaving. They stayed around for quite a bit longer before slowly moving away. While B was attending more talks, Penny and I just relaxed on the porch before taking a walk around the YMCA grounds. Near the end of our walk we passed closely by the group of elk and I was able to get a few more close-up pics of the big bull. Penny may not have even noticed that these huge animals were there- great hunting instincts. A little while after this the group moved off for the night and a lonely young bull followed their path at a distance. For dinner, we went to Smokin' Daves BBQ and we each had pulled pork and sausage and I also had a beer. The food was decent, but really nothing to get too excited about. For the day, we drove less than 50 miles. This was our last night at the cabin but tomorrow we would take a little drive through the park before heading down to Boulder.