How we came to find ourselves in Colorado bears an explanation. Chris had spoken at a conference in San Antonio the previous week, and we had made the drive from California to Texas in advance of that event. Hoping to garner some consulting work following the conference, we wound up embarking on a road trip that would take us first to Houston for two nights, Waco for one, Dallas for two, and finally to Amarillo for a night. The potential client that Chris really wanted to work with was based in Denver, so we headed north out of Texas instead of west once he secured a meeting there. To make the story even longer, we wanted to see a Rockies game at Coors Field while in the area, but they were on the road until Labor Day, which left us with a few days to fill before heading home. All this to say we found a hotel in Loveland, CO, from which we expected to spend a few days exploring the area around Rocky Mountain NP before driving back to Denver for the ballgame. So, we thus secured an entry permit to the park for 1:30pm on this September Friday, leaving us not that much time to get both a hike in and a drive through the parkland lying east of the Continental Divide before dark. Researching hike options that morning, Chris had selected a 5-mile loop in the Glacier Gorge area, and we weaved the truck through the heavy traffic at the park entrance and onto the relative calm roadways beyond, shortly turning south on the Bear Lake road. This we followed to its end, grateful to find several open parking spaces in the large lot there (we had passed signs indicating the parking area was full, but given our brief time window, we figured we’d chance it rather than wait for a shuttle). As we arrived in the parking lot, threatening clouds unleashed a heavy squall seemingly right on top of us – after sitting in the truck for maybe 10 minutes, the rain abruptly stopped and it was back to sunny skies. We started out shortly thereafter on the Bear Lake trail, which we immediately encountered just 100 yards from the parking lot. Turning south and west, we followed the Dream Lake trail some 200′ higher to Nymph Lake a half mile distant – maybe half the small lake was covered in lily pads, something we’re not used to in California. We next climbed about 250′ over another half mile to Dream Lake, ensconced in a hanging valley below the Continental Divide just to the west – we paused here for a bit to take in the views, along with perhaps 50 of our closest friends. Leaving Dream Lake, we headed south and 400′ higher up to Lake Haiyaha about a mile away – here, a recent landslide had turned the lake water a milky whitish-grey, and we were a bit disappointed to not find the expected turquoise blue water typical of a high glacial lake. We backtracked about a quarter mile to a previous junction, where we turned again, this time southeastward toward Glacier Gorge – leaving the crowds behind, we had the trail entirely to ourselves for the next mile, and the scenery was simply gorgeous as we picked our way down the trail. Our turnaround point was planned to be Glacier Falls that lies above a large flat known as Loch Vale – we passed a junction and headed due south, soon arriving at a small bridge below a gushing cataract we took to be the falls. Resting here briefly, we began our walk back north to complete our loop (later, we discovered the actual Glacier Falls was another quarter mile further up the trail – doh!). Returning to the previous junction in Loch Vale, we found that our expected trail down was blocked off with branches across the trail – the alternative was to follow a longer but basically parallel track that lay a bit further east, so off we went. Our descent now followed Glacier Creek, the stream that carved narrow clefts through the bedrock and created Glacier Gorge, although the trail didn’t offer many views of these canyons directly. After about 1-1/2 mile of descent, we found ourselves in the bottom of the drainage, some 200 vertical feet below and a quarter mile away from our vehicle. That last climb up the parking area was quite unpleasant, especially when we found a note on the truck’s windshield from a ranger stating he had found Chris’ wallet lying on the pavement beneath the truck – awesome. So, we had to then drive to the indicated ranger station where – thankfully – the ranger had indeed stashed the wallet, despite the fact that the office was closed by the time we got there. We spend the next couple of hours driving west through the park, at one point eclipsing the 12,000′ level, before turning back east to make our way back to Loveland – just at twilight, we passed a moose eating his dinner in a creek bed near the roadway, and that made our first day (and our only day, as it turned out) in Rocky Mountain NP a great one.