Rolling into the Bear Lake parking lot long before sunrise always brings excitement. So many of Rocky Mountain National Park’s most scenic and beautiful locations emanate from the Bear Lake Trailhead. Bear Lake itself is a classic iconic Colorado location in itself and its only a few hundred yard walk from the parking.
As somebody who photographs RMNP a lot, its really easy to take the accessibility and beauty found in the Bear Lake area of Rocky for granted so after the entire area was closed for the past few weeks due to fire activity from the East Troublesome Fire, it was great to be able to get back up to Bear Lake for a sunrise.
Even better than getting back up to Bear Lake for sunrise was fining a small portion of Bear Lake with open water and clean ice. Normally by the end of November Bear Lake would be covered with snow and lots of footprints.
Warm weather had kept a small portion of the east side of Bear Lake open and free of snow making for a nice welcome back and a short trip from the parking lot. As I write this snow is falling on Bear Lake so it will now remain covered until late spring when the thaw starts.
While access is still limited on many of the trails around Bear Lake, including the Fern Lake section, its good to see snow falling on the dry landscape and access to Rocky Mountain National Park opening back up once again.