Posted a similar image in the Technical Camera thread:
I don’t have a direct BTS photo (cuz I’m a loser and didn’t think of it), but the hike was so much fun I want to tell the story. I tried to reach this lake last winter but failed. I borrowed some snowshoes that weren’t quite big enough, and didn’t really know where the trail was. I kept sinking in, post-holing with snowshoes on. Doesn’t make for speedy travel and is pretty exhausting.
This summer I did the whole loop hike from Bear Lake to Glacier Gorge. Although parts of the trail were miserably crowded on a Saturday in July, at least I could see where the trail was and have some memory for the winter when everything is covered in snow. Here is what part of the shoreline looks like in mid-day summer. As you might imagine, “haiyaha” is a Native American word for rock.
This time I had some trail beta and my own snowshoes. The first part of the hike is well-traveled to Dream Lake. In the winter, very few people venture beyond that. From Dream Lake to Lake Haiyaha, I could see some faint ski tracks in spots where the wind hadn’t obscured them (probably a few days to a week old). That was the only evidence I found of others going beyond Dream Lake.
Here is the hike. The scene is looking WSW from the SE shore of the lake:
On the hike back, I captured an iphone image of Longs Peak in the distance (the knob on the left):
If anyone hikes around the Bear Lake area in Rocky Mountain National Park, I highly recommend heading to this lake, regardless of the time of year. It is less traveled than other lakes in the area and quite pretty.
Lake Haiyaha - Hike Lake Haiyaha in Rocky Mountain National Park
Dave