First RMNP hike of the year.

A panoramic shot from the trail.
As far as I went today.
Copeland mountain, or is it mt. Copeland?
St Vrain drainage.
Some cool trees.
I am sure things were dry up here less than a week ago. But since then it has been raining and snowing a little here, which means snowing alot in RMNP.
But I had a burning desire to get out! So today I got up a little early and drove up rt 7 to see what I could do.
My first idea was to do the Twin Sisters peaks. Unfortunately, I noticed large snow caps on the peaks above tree line (and a week ago there was only spotty snow, far more stone color than snow anyway). This put that plan down as I didn't have the gear with me to tackle much snow.
So I decided to head for wild basin and see what I could find there. I am not sure how it is going to work out, but I have made a goal to hike every named location from the wild basin trail head this season.
One hike I hadn't done yet was sand beach lake. The trail leaves from the parking lot right at the ranger kiosk. I though it would be interesting to do ouzel lake and see how it looked in a different season, but decided against that as the road was closed to that trail head.
Out of the car it was cooler, but not cold. Bad for me there was a ton of snow. I was thinking the trees might have helped the trail stay clear a bit, but no such luck. Undeterred, I decided to press on until I either reached the lake, lost the trail in the snow, or got cold feet.
The trail was surprisingly easy to follow. It just looked like a sunken area in the surface of the mountain, so that was no problem. My feet were. All I wore was some light summer running shoes. Really it wasn't too bad.
The snow was, with drifts up to two feet deep in places, and me often post-holing up to mid shin or knee depth. I made the first 1.4 miles to the connection with the meeker park trailhead trail, and decided there to turn around. Cold feet being high in my reasoning. If only I had snow shoes!
So I headed back. The trail was easier to find with my foot prints, and I even (GASP!) ran down some of it. I made the descent in half the time it took me to go up, so I may have to practice doing some trail running. That could be very useful this summer.
It was definitely a disappointing first hike of the season. If I had been better prepared I could have done more, but oh well. It is always nice and very peaceful and relaxing to spend time in RMNP, particularly at wild basin since you can usually avoid alot of the tourist crowds.