Emerald Lake - Rocky Mountain National Park (Beautiful, Crowded, Overrated)

We're at the Bear Lake Trailhead inside of Rocky Mountain National Park. Today we're going to do the most popular trail in the park, Emerald Lake. We're going to start out at Bear Lake, see Nymph Lake, Dream Lake, and ultimately Emerald Lake. This 3 mile, 700 foot elevation gain hike is the most popular in the park so you will need to have timed entry to access this area. Parking is limited. Many people need to shuttle bus up here and then when you're on the trail, it is a conga line of folks all the way up and back. So let's see if this hike holds up on a Friday of a holiday weekend. Come along with me. Let's go check out Emerald Lake. Well, we had a beautiful hike up to Emerald Lake here in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a beautiful day here, Friday before Labor Day. It wasn't too hot. Fall is just barely starting. We've got one yellow tree on this hike. Unfortunately, it is just as crowded as I recall and is still going down as one of my least favorite hikes in all of the Front Range of Colorado. The reason why I made this video is because so many of you come to Rocky Mountain and this is the one and only thing that you do. So what would I recommend that you do instead? My first choice would be to send you to Mills Lake out of the Glacier Gorge Trailhead. Same parking area, same timed entry permits, only when you are there Mills Lake has plenty of room for everyone to spread out and beautiful photo opportunities with Longs Peak, Keyboard of the Winds, Pagoda Mountain, and a large sparkling lake versus this hike which has the same cirque for all four lakes. So the view is consistently the same and you'll get home and find your photos are the same which no matter which lake you are at so I think for some variety I would add that on take on another five lakes six lakes or seven lake loop heading up to Lake Hayaha instead of going to Emerald just skip that and head up and ascend further outside of Dream Lake. Other options in this area if you're looking for something fairly straightforward on the low end of Moderate I would do Cub Lake which has excellent parking opportunities, beautiful fall colors, the big Thompson River and is a very accessible six miles most of which is a gentle stream walk. There are plenty of other great choices right out of this same corridor such as Bierstadt Lake starting from Bear Lake going down to the Park and Ride. You can skip all the buses that way. There's beautiful trails that head out towards Odessa Lake, Lake Helene. If you're looking to do a very approachable beginner to 10 miles level hike you can head out that direction and you will leave the crowds behind in the first two tenths of a mile. So I think it's good for you to be able to see the most popular hike here in all of Rocky Mountain, but again, I would still recommend something else unless you're here in the dead of winter and want to try a winter hike, then Emerald Lake might be the best thing on your list. Thanks for joining me today. We'll see you on the next hike.