Archive for the 'Fern' category

Fern Falls Summer

Sep 02 2019 Published by under Fern, Marguerite, Summer

Fern Falls Summer #1

Fern Falls Summer #1

“I have a theory” As my neighbor, Marcelo, prefaces many conversations. In this case, I have a theory about Fern Falls. Or, more appropriately, I have a theory about Fern and Marguerite Falls. On all the maps I’ve looked at while doing my research for this project, this is called Fern Falls. This hike with Lindsey over the Labor Day weekend completes it in terms of 31 Falls. It’s a couple miles from the trailhead, up a pair of steep switchbacks on the way to Fern Lake.
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Fern Falls Winter

Mar 19 2019 Published by under Fern, Winter

Fern Falls Winter #5

Fern Falls Winter Gallery

I awoke this morning to the sounds of birds twittering outside the window as the eighteen inches of snow that fell mid-week slid from the roof as the sun warmed it. Spring is just around the corner, but winter is still here, as the bomb-cyclone storm reminded us. Fern Falls is one of the more spectacular falls in the Park, on a north facing slope, so I expected the usual winter appearance of a falls. Small sections of falling water surrounded by cathedral-like ice and soft pillowy mounds of snow, undercut by a continual sound track of flowing water under ice.

A few miles hike in from the road’s winter closure, and I couldn’t have been more mistaken. Without knowledge of Fern Falls existence, you couldn’t have guessed it was there. It’s been a good winter, one that buries the Falls of seasons past in a hibernation of snow.

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No apologies

May 23 2016 Published by under Fern, Spring

Fern Falls Spring Gallery

Fern Falls Spring #9

Another long lay-off between waterfall posts. It is what it is. Spring is returning to the Rocky Mountains, and so am I.

I hiked up to Fern Falls on a foggy Sunday morning, not seeing another human for hours. Climbing the last switchback before these falls, however, I did hear the low bass huffing noise of a bear somewhere upslope of me. After my initial response, consisting entirely of freezing in place and straining my ears to place the noise, I broke out into song, in the hopes that my atonal vocals would prove unappetizing. I never saw the bear, but I did see the rapidly flowing waters over Fern Falls.

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Autumn Equinox

Sep 24 2011 Published by under Autumn, Fern

I stepped out of the car at the Fern Lake Trailhead in the pre-dawn light, surrounded by yellowed aspen leaves and the otherworldly sound of bugling elk.


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