Tag: rocky mountain national park

Posted on

Hallett Peak RMNP June 2025

I arrived in Estes Park an hour later than I wanted to; primarily due to my flight departing late due to the Atlanta weather issue. 

As I drove into this mountain town it was getting dark and I just needed to get something to eat. Luckily, the hotel restaurant had a cool burger restaurant / ale bar.

I tried to orient myself to this place. I’ve been here a handful of times but it all seems so new and was just discombobulated. Nothing seems familiar, which was funny because I used to be the girl who always wanted to see something new but I purposely have been going back to the places I’ve lived or spent time. It was a bit familiar but still seemed new.

I ate a burger and drank an IPA. I took a short walk down the road and saw a sliver of the moon before heading back and going to bed. Tomorrow was a big day.

In my typical fashion, I was wigged out and not sure what I would do. As I packed for the hike I thought maybe I’d just stay in this cute town and walk around instead of doing my hike tomorrow. I think about forgoing the 5am admission to Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park I reserved when they first were available online months ago.

In the morning I was still uncertain what to do. I brushed my teeth. I looked around the hotel room and something in my brain clicks. I put on my trail runners, put in my contacts, filled my bladders with ice and water, and headed to my car ready to hike. I’m ready for this hike. I felt good.

As I drove into the park I thought how I would love to live here again. It just felt right. I knew Tennessee is not my forever place and maybe Colorado was. I missed my dogs and don’t like being without them but they are not allowed on trails in this national park. 

I came here to hike Hallett Peak because I wanted to go back and do what I did when I took the American Youth Hostel trip in 1988. I was 17 and wanted to see the world. 

Now, I want to go back to these places I visited in 1988 and while doing it – think about all the choices I made from that trip to now. This is the second time I’ve done this; last year I went to Glacier National Park. Next year is Yellowstone and Grand Teton.

Here I am, 37 years later. I’m hiking Flattop Mountain Trail and will continue .6 miles on an unnamed trail to Hallett Peak. 

Here is the entry from my journal from 1988 (I’ve kept a journal since 1984)

Today, June 27, 2025, Friday, I entered the park and showed my timed entry to the park ranger. I was nervous about getting a parking spot at Bear Lake but when arriving at 6am the lot was half full – relief. I was feeling inspired and ready to hike. 

I started up the trail to Flattop Mountain and most people I saw turned left to the shorter hikes to the lakes while carrying big cameras and lenses. I don’t see anyone until I see a family of 5 hiking towards me. They told me they weren’t prepared for the terrain and heading back to Bear Lake. I don’t see anyone again until I made a turn on the trail and saw colorful clothes to my left. A family of 3 was sitting on a rock taking in the views. I asked them if they are heading to Flattop and they said yes. Awesome, I reply. I won’t be alone. 

I hiked the slowest I’ve ever hiked. My heart beat hard and I stopped frequently to catch my breath. I’m a fast hiker, but not today. I thought of turning around many times, but my self-talk told me “I have nothing else to do today so I might as well keep going.” This helps.

I seriously have no other commitments and could take as long as I needed to get to the top. This kept me going, plus, I really wanted to get to the top and re-live this memory. Nothing looked familiar. Nothing. 

I stopped several times to take in the views of the mountain lakes and the snowy peaks across the valley, then kept going. I ate and drank, and stopped to breathe. 

I made it above treeline and kept going to Flattop. The views were stunning. My head started to ache. I sat down for a few minutes. I made it to a snow field and then to the junction where Hallett’s trail continues marked by cairns only. I asked a man in running tights how the trail was. “It’s an easy 20 minutes.” 

I was convinced to continue and it was slow going over rocks, much like Mount Washington and the Presidential Traverse in New Hampshire. The last tenth of a mile was scrambling and looking for cairns. This was not easy. Every step I was cautious and intentional. My brain was zombie-like. I had a headache. 

I made it. 

This is seriously the biggest accomplishment for me in 2025. I did what I planned to do. I didn’t injure myself. I didn’t have a heart attack. I didn’t get killed by a wild animal. I made it. 

I don’t stay long and head back down. I’m nervous about running out of water. I have my filter and just need to find a stream. 

At the junction I met three women, all solo hikers. We took a selfie and this was the moment when I knew I’m not a weirdo to do all these hikes solo – so many other brave women were doing it too. In the background is Hallett Peak.

I hiked slowly and methodically because I wanted to remember this moment. I did it. 

I found a stream and filtered water into my bladder and kept going. The sun was strong and I was eager to get into the trees. I made it down and I’m surprised that nothing hurts; my training was good. 

I got back to my car and drove back to Estes Park. I needed food and more water. I don’t have a post-hike plan other than to drive to Leadville after. I should’ve had a plan.

I left the park and head edback to the hotel where I knew I can use a restroom to clean up and possibility get another burger. The burger place was closed so I drove down the road to a Mexican restaurant and ordered a burrito and Pepsi. Just what I needed. 

I looked through my photos of the day while I ate my burrito and I felt so happy. So happy.

Now on to the next hike – Hope Pass at Twin Lakes on Saturday – and a chance at redemption.

Posted on

Following Isabella and My Colorado Adventure, Book Review

Robert Root writes the story of how he followed Isabella Bird’s three-month (Sep-Dec) journey at age 42 through the Front Range of Colorado in 1873. While Bird seeks to understand this place, Root seeks to see what Colorado will mean to him after living most of his life in Michigan. 

He writes about that first view of the Rocky Mountains while driving from the plains; it is impossible to forget. It is a spellbinding moment of beauty and awe – that first glimpse of snow white peaks in the distance. He enters Colorado from the east similar to all migratory Americans, and me too. (17)

I know that view he describes from driving west from Maine in 2004. Like early adventures and explorers Root is lured west by the promise of new beginnings. 

As an outsider, Bird entered each new world with an openness to experience and an intention to record what she encountered. (19) I think this is a similar sentiment for me. I feel like every new trail or new state I move to there is an intention to record it and understand it. 

Bird was labeled high strung along with being an adventurer. In 1873 there were few women adventurers exploring the frontier.  Root writes her health improved while traveling. When home, she “wilted”. Her life was traveling and exploring but she preferred the less traveled parts of the world. She was always looking for the path less traveled, less populated areas. Also, novelty and freedom kept her healthy, Root writes. And this 1873 Colorado  challenged her resourcefulness and curiosity. A place unfettered by duties to her family and society is the world she created for herself. The plains and the makeshift settlements unsettled her but once she reached the canyons and mountains she remarked: 

“the canyon became utterly inaccessible…this was exciting; here was an inner world.” (47)

When she entered Estes Park, she came alive.

 “Mountain fever seized me”, she writes in her journal.

Root writes that she didn’t have much interest in the science of the place; she was interested in the mood it created in her or the circumstances it created for her. (63) I am captivated by her journal writing about the hike to Longs Peak. I just so happen to be reading this section of the book on the plane as I fly from Knoxville to Denver knowing I will see the peak in the distance. I never thought of climbing Longs, even after 10 years of living in Colorado but for some reason, I want to now. Maybe it is the emotion she writes about the trail to the top. I want to experience it the way she does. 

Root writes that Bird worried about writing about beautiful places because you don’t want the masses to find it. Similar to other nature writers, particularly Edward Abbey, she wanted to keep it to herself and unspoiled. 

Root reflects on Bird’s writing and his, and defines memoir and compares it to autobiography “Autobiography is a chronological art, an act of recordkeeping with commentary, not, like memoir, an attempt to revivify a period of the past, make it possible for another person to live the moment too through reading. Autobiography eschews the intimate, the commonplace detail,  the unexceptional private life; memoir embraces them.” (113)

Are you a sticker or a transient? Root answers: “If you stay too long in one place you can no longer  call yourself a transient or a traveler. You’ve become an inhabitant and you spend your time learning how to dwell there, day by day. For most of us, perhaps, this inevitable change is not only expected but anticipated. For Isabella Bird, it was frustrating and unacceptable.” (271)

I’m not a sticker but I’m not transient either – I think, maybe.

Bird came to Colorado on a recommendation of a friend, writes Root. She found more than she expected and didn’t expect to stay longer than she did. She traveled to remote places, places on the edge of the frontier, and avoided settled places. She preferred the wild and less cultivated areas. She went on to other places and wrote books about the other places and never mentioned Colorado again; and she never came back. She wanted to be in motion and test her limits. She retreated from a regulated life of responsibility and obligation and social constraints. 

Root is a nonfiction writer of place who wrote this book after moving to Colorado. He falls in love with the place as he follows Isabella’s travels in the Front Range. 

Like Root, I love to explore new places and find its “distinctive qualities” and learn its natural and cultural histories. “I’ve merely wanted to know where I am…I like who I am when I’m here,” he writes. I can say the same thing about the mountains towns I’ve lived in. I consider my current place, Sevierville a mountain town. 

Root ends his book with a pithy statement about Colorado that rings true to me and my discovery, while living in different places: “I can imagine moving on. I can’t imagine letting go.”

“The mountains are hard to ignore, hard to be complacent about, and yet the sight of them so often startles me, stuns me, as if I’m repeatedly discovering them anew.” (265)