Today I went on a beautiful hike to check what the snow levels were doing in Rocky Mountain National Park with fellow hikemasters Scott and Ritchie. We left from the Fern Lake trailhead. Flowers are beginning to be plentiful on the south facing slope on the right in the first mile; Britton's skullcap dotting the hillside in places. Water in the Big Thompson is definitely in full spring runoff. The Pool was boiling with all the snow that is finally melting. Fern Falls was deafening in its pounding. Only a slight bit of snow on the way to Fern Lake, but the lake is still frozen in spots. The interesting part of the hike was from Fern Lake to Odessa. Snow was deep and getting soft, so after post-holing numerous times, we opted for snowshoes. The trail is under quite a bit of snow and traverses quite a slope, so we opted to bushwhack a little higher up to some flatter terrain. Coming back down off the higher terrain proved to be interesting - sliding on snowshoes while grabbing onto trees to stop us from crashing through the snow bridge and into the river. Finally made it to a frozen Lake Odessa and a beautiful view of the snow covered peaks behind.