Innie Me: RMNP - Lumpy Ridge Loop

My husband and I visited Estes Park, Colorado for the Labor Day weekend. We planned to hike at nearby Rocky Mountain National Park, one of my favorite places (I once exclaimed "we should go every year!"). Although we could not find the park trail map we bought several years ago, Kent found a trail we could hike without entering the park, the Lumpy Ridge Loop. As we hiked and enjoyed the beautiful scenery, we could never have imagined that in just a couple of weeks, the town of Estes Park and many other small communities in Colorado would be devastated by flooding.

We started our hike fairly early - around 8:00 a.m. We wanted to have a good breakfast first but most of the restaurants in town didn't open until 6:30 on a Saturday. It often rains in the Rocky Mountains in the afternoon so we like to finish our hikes before the rain hits. Several years ago we got caught coming down a mountain trail in a hail storm. That was a little scary.

An Adobe Acrobat version of the National Park Service's map of Lumpy Ridge Trails is available online.

We hiked in a counter-clockwise direction towards Gem Lake. After climbing a bit, we reached a part of the trail where you can look back and see the town of Estes Park.

View of Estes Park

Earlier this year, I I looked through some old photo albums and scanned a few pictures we had taken at Rocky Mountain National Park in the 1990's when we were visiting the park more frequently. So when we came to a rock with a hole in it, I thought "this looks familiar." As we continued on towards Gem Lake, I saw some layered looking rocks and again had that "I've been here before" feeling. My husband didn't think so but the pictures tell a different story! I like being right!

2013 Rock with Hole

1995 Rock with Hole

2013 Gem Lake

1995 Gem Lake

After Gem Lake, we hiked down a forested area and crossed Cow Creek.

Paintbrush

Grove of Aspens

One of the nice things about the Lumpy Ridge Loop is that the 12 miles is broken up by several smaller segments so you can monitor your progress easily. We debated leaving the loop and hiking to Bridal Veil Falls because it is only one mile from the Loop trail. We both have physical issues to contend with (feet and ankle problems) so I opted out of going an extra two miles.

As we came back around the last five miles of the hike, there were a lot of views of the "lumpy ridge." As we looked up at the rocks, we could see a couple of rock climbers.