Hiked the Glacier Gorge trail to Black Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, November 16th, 2019. Started at roughly 5:00 am at the Glacier Gorge Junction Trailhead. The trail was packed down full of snow, which made it doable with micro-spikes on, snow shoes were not necessary on this day.
Made it to Mills Lake in about an hour, with plenty of time to wait for the sunrise. Sunrises over frozen alpine lakes are one of my favorite parts of mother nature to photograph. The weather was nice for a early winter hike in Rocky Mountain National Park with lows in the teens, but got up to the high 20’s once the sun came up. Wind was blowing hard at the trailhead but settled down quite a bit as we started hiking.
Ribbon falls was mostly frozen, and to get up close to it required postholing, almost up to my waist. You could see the water flowing under the ice sheet and it was one of the coolest things that I have ever seen.
The trail was still pretty easy to follow after Ribbon falls, with a moderate snow packed path leading up to Black Lake.
This time of the year the trail was very quite, while only passing a couple of rock climbers early in the am. Finally made it to Black Lake in just under 3 hours. Walked around the lake a little bit, took a bunch of photos, and decided to skip out on hiking up to Frozen lake this time.
Highly recommend this great winter hike in Rocky Mountain National Park.
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