The Hike to Hidden Falls

A short, but satisfying hike in Rocky Mountain National Park

After leaving the Stanley Hotel, we drove to the “winter” Wild Basin trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park. We met the in-laws in the parking lot, grabbed our spikes and poles, and started walking through the snow.

I relished the contrast between light and dark, the deep shadows cast by the afternoon winter sun. I listened to the wind, gusting, roaring through the tops of the trees. It shook the previous night’s snowfall from the needles, blowing the snow onto us like glitter from the sky. I knew I couldn’t capture it on camera, so I stopped a couple of times and let my eyes commit the view to memory. The wind shook the base of the trees. The weakest lodgepole pines swayed and creaked dangerously. I felt the bite of the cold on my cheeks, though they thawed when kissed by the high elevation sun.

Colorado is in a severe drought at the moment. We have record-low snowpack, so despite there being snow on the ground in February, there wasn’t nearly as much as there should be. Down in Colorado Springs, the temperature has been hovering in the 50s and 60s, the ground is extremely bare, and the top of Pikes Peak is missing its toupée.

The in-laws mentioned that the trail's turnaround point is a waterfall that freezes in the winter, and that ice climbers sometimes take advantage of the freeze. We heard their voices before we saw them as we approached the end of the trail. I put on my spikes once I spotted a climber through the trees.

I’d never seen ice climbing in real life. The movement was methodical. One hand driving a pick into the ice, then the corresponding foot, then the other side, slowly working their way up the wall like Spider-Man on a building.

The ice caught the afternoon light in two colors: orange where it bounced off the nearby rock, blue where it sat in shadow. Their voices were quiet, mostly. The occasional word of encouragement, a piece of advice, then silence again, punctuated only by the sharp crack of metal finding ice.

I sometimes feel challenged to express meaning in my newsletters and photographs. But on this particular hike, I didn’t feel anything more than a walk through the trees.

Cheers.