Karen and I returned to the Bear Lake Trailhead last night, this time with a 3 car caravan of friends, to hike under a full moon.  Doubtful you can make anyone out from my blurry photography, but there are 15 of us, standing here on the frozen Nymph Lake.  Beautiful night for a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Following a snow covered trail at night, even with such a large moon illuminating the path, isn’t easy.  We took some wrong turns at times but most of them ran back into the main trail at some point.  Karen and I turned around half way between Nymph Lake and Dream Lake while the main group forged on.  The sides of the trail were fairly steep in this area.  The right bordered by ice covered cliffs and the left dropped off into the darkness.  The trail is wide in this photo above but got fairly narrow in places.

This photo looks like entering light speed in space.  Susan took this looking down on the ice while standing on Dream Lake.  It’s air bubbles trapped in the ice.  The rest of the group turned around here.  The trail continues to Emerald Lake but it’s slow navigating in the dark.

We reached the Stanley Hotel near 9pm for dinner.  Jen and her precious daughter Lauren pose here in the Redrum frame.  I said something morbid to prompt grim faces but Jen began to crack up instead.  The food is very good at the Stanley but it’s possible we were simply starving for dinner.  We attacked our food like the Donner family.  I quaffed a Shining Pale Ale with mine, locally brewed.  Super fun night.