Gem Lake

— As the Rocky Mountain NP anniversary approaches this week, I took a trip back down memory lane and looked at some of my old photos from our last trip to that park. Has it been over 10 years really?!? I had previously posted four shots from that trip, and now I’m adding one more. This is Gem Lake. This is a moderate trail and can often have a lot of people at this location. We lucked out this day we were there. The few people who had hiked to this lake left shortly after we got there. We stopped for a leisure lunch and even took a short nap under the shaded trees. You can see some of the branches of the tree I was under on the top of the photo. Before reaching the lake, the climb gets very steep with large rock steps. There are also beautiful views of Estes Park and Longs Peak along this trail. One interesting fact about Gem Lake is that is formed by trapped snowmelt and rainwater only. There is no stream leading to or from the lake.