For years upon years I’ve been coming to Rocky Mountain National Park, but I had never experienced the Wild Basin area near Allenspark. I have one word for this area of the park, PHENOMENAL! We decided to hike to Calypso Cascades on Saturday morning to kick off the Labor Day weekend.
After driving back to the parking area on a dirt road, we were greeted by our first surprise…bears!! Apparently, bears had shattered the window and torn out the metal door frame of two cars that were parked in the parking lot. The rangers were all abuzz. Typically, we have been told to leave all food, sun blocks, candy, etc in the car; however, the rules were new for these bears. They clearly knew how to get to the food they craved. Consequently, we were told to pack all of our food out of the car and take it with us on our hike.
Once I confirmed that the trail we were going to be taking was fairly busy, we packed up our picnic lunch and headed out. The trail was gorgeous. It followed a swift creek most of the way. The trail meandered through thick forest that reminded me of the Pacific Northwest, more than it reminded me of Colorado. Ferns, green mosses, and damp pine needles were all to be found during the entire hike.
After hiking about 1.8 miles in, we reached Calypso Cascades. The bridge crossing the stream below the cascades made for a perfect photo opportunity with the kids. Then, we settled in for our lunch. Although I initially had envisioned us hiking all the way to some larger waterfalls, storm clouds were approaching and the temperature was dropping. The kids were getting chilled, so we high-tailed it back to the parking lot.
All-in-all it was an exciting hiking trip…always on the look out for hungry bears. I can’t wait to head back and make it a bit further next time. I’d love to see the falls and eventually the lakes beyond that. One step at a time…I’m sure we will see it all…