Odessa Lake Hike from Bear Lake in RMNP

Chris and I keep finding hikes in the national park that we have yet to hike. Which is great because we love being in the park and having it so close.

Because of the reservation system, we have to reserve our visits a month in advance.

Odessa Lake was a new hike and like most hikes, has a pretty steep incline from the start. I usually set off thinking, "Why do I like this so much?" as I huff and puff up the path.

We continued on marveling at the beauty, the green-ness of the mountains still, and the waterfalls. We didn't realize we would encounter waterfalls on this hike and loved them. Along the way we passed by Lake Helene, Notchtop Mountain, Knobtop and Flattop.

Before beginning our descent, we stopped for lunch, eating the Subway sandwiches we had purchased.

Our view of the waterfall in the distance.

We were glad to have our hiking poles as we had to cross a couple snowy patches along the trail. 

We made it across the first section of snow without too much trouble.

I don't know if you can see some of the slide marks in the snow as we both slipped on the snow and slid a bit. That was just a little bit unnerving.

From here we began our descent of the western slopes of Joe Mills Mountain toward Odessa Lake, more than 500 feet below us in the valley. Little Matterhorn and The Gable Mountains were on our left and across the valley.

We stopped for awhile at Odessa Lake and enjoyed the sunshine and the views.

The wildflowers were in fine form through this burn area (burned approximately two years ago).

And another waterfall.

We continued our hike past Fern Lake and then to the trail head where we hiked out a bit to be picked up by the shuttle bus.

We didn't realize we would have to wait for over a half an hour for the bus to arrive. Fortunately we had a covered area where we could sit once it started to sprinkle on us.

Good hike.