I sound like a broken record, but the warm and dry weather that continues to settle over Colorado and more specifically Rocky Mountain National Park is really making for some unusual early season photography. Lakes and water below 10,000 ft are ice free or nearly ice free about a month earlier than I would usually expect. Snow is almost nonexistent in under the forest canopy below 9500 ft and streams and waterfalls are free of ice and snow and flowing freely. To summarize, as we move into the first week of April in Rocky, it sure feels like early June in the park.
Tuesday, which was the last day of March, I hiked up to Bierstadt Lake for sunrise. Typically this time of year Bierstadt is covered in ice or at least most of it would be. The Bierstadt Moraine and trail which gets plenty of sun and faces south is usually mostly free of snow by now but once you get to the top of the moraine, the entire forest surrounding the lake usually has feet os snow covering the trail and forest. As of now, there is barely any snow in the canopy or along the trail and the lake itself except for a small area on the west side is completely free of snow, just like I would expect to find in early June.
On Wednesday of this week, the first day of April we were lucky enough to get some light rain and snow over the park. Sunrise was clouded over and so I decided to hike up to Chasm Falls along the still closed Old Fall River Road to see how the waterfall was looking in the overcast light. Old Fall River Road was completely free of snow which is odd for April 1st and Chasm Falls was also completely thawed and free of snow except for one tiny remaining patch above the falls. The falls were flowing at a moderate clip and its actually a great time to photograph Chasm Falls with the road closed as a normally busy location essential becomes a backcountry like experience. In a normal year I would expect some snow and ice to still be encasing the falls but once again Chasm Falls looks like it does in June more than early April.
The warm weather pattern has not released its grip yet over Rocky. Every time the weather looks promising for a good dose of moisture in the form of snow or rain, the system underdeliver or peters out. I keep holding out hope we will have a rainy and snowy April and May as we transition towards even warmer summer days. Were never going to catchup to normal this year but here to hoping the pattern flips and more moisture finds its way over Rocky Mountain National Park this spring to assuage the overall oddity that has been winter and spring this season.