RMNP Hiking Guide: Bear Lake to Fern Lake Trailhead Part 3

Hello again! I’m finishing up with my mini-series of posts on the 8.5 mile (9.3 with the walk to the shuttle) hike in the Rocky Mountain National Park that starts at Bear Lake and ends at the Fern Lake trailhead.

For those of you who are just joining, all I will say is this is bucket list worthy stuff. Now you’re caught up!

I’ve mentioned this in the previous posts, but when my friend, my 8 month old baby, and I started out on this hike we thought it was 7 miles! (PS, people on All Trails are sometimes grossly erroneous…but you guys probably already knew that). So here we are, hiking on an 8.5 mile trail, thinking its 7 miles, wondering how in the heck it’s taking us so long to finish!!!

Literally, when I look at pictures from this last leg, I can still feel the concern over why we were making such poor time!! We felt a whole lot better about ourselves when we realized it was a mile and a half longer than we thought!

Once you have drunk in all the beauty you can from Odessa Lake, you just hop right back on the same ‘ol trail and continue on to Fern Lake.

I have already posted information about this hike in my first post, but here are some tidbits for those who don’t feel like clicking all around:

Directions: (From Estes Park) Take US-36W/Moraine Ave through Estes Park.  This will quickly take you to the entrance of the park.  Ask for a map of the park and follow signs for Bear Lake.

Directions to trailhead: As with many well known hikes in the RMNP, our trailhead is located at Bear Lake.  From the parking lot, you will follow the signs to Bear Lake and enter the trail that goes around the entire lake.  Follow this trail to the right.  You won’t make it halfway before you see signs for Fern Lake.

Restrooms: Yes, in the Bear Lake parking lot.  There will not be restrooms again until the very end of the trail

Distance: 8.5 miles from Bear Lake to Fern Lake trailhead, and then another 0.8 miles to the shuttle pickup location

Difficulty: Moderate to Difficult

Pets OK? Dogs are not allowed on trails in RMNP

Crowds: Heavy around Bear Lake, low soon after leaving the Bear Lake area, then picks up again close to Fern Lake trailhead

Camping allowed: Camping is allowed in designated campsites throughout the park

Fees/Permits: Fees are subject to change.  Check out this link for current prices.

For a detailed list of tips for hiking this trail, please visit my first post!

This portion of this hike has less spectacular views but winds through heavily forested areas.

I would say it got easier as we came down in elevation, but between our backpack of supplies and the baby-it was still pretty strenuous!

It doesn’t feel like very long at all before you catch your first glimpse of Fern Lake.

It’s weird how past experiences change your perspective entirely.  I’m sure if this was the first lake I’d seen of the day it would have been one of those mind-blowing-that’s-so-pretty-I’m-mad sort of experiences…but after Lake Helene and Odessa Lake we were just like, “That’s nice, but we’ve seen better”.  Regardless of our jaded attitude, Fern Lake is very beautiful and is actually the largest of the lakes we saw that day!

We didn’t stop at this lake because we were worried about how poor our time was.  The shuttles only run until a certain time, and we were two hours out from the last ride so we didn’t want to miss it!

Last look at Fern Lake before continuing on!

Continue to follow signs for Fern Lake trailhead.  There are some intersecting trails after the Fern Lake that would greatly extend your already lengthy hike.

After some time you’ll come across Fern Falls. This waterfall is much larger in real life than it appears in these pictures!! If we weren’t worried about time I think we would have spent a little longer here.

The area in the above picture is known as The Pool.  We were still a little less than 2 miles to the trailhead, so needless to say we didn’t spend a lot of time exploring around here either.

Are you noticing a trend??

It was getting a little cooler with the sun behind the mountains, but if it had been warmer this would’ve made a great stopping point to hangout by the water.

We hiked this at the end of August but you can already see some fall colors!! The closer you get to the trailhead the more Aspen there are.  I would have loved to hike this portion again in the fall!!

After about 7 hours we finally made it to the trailhead, and we finally discovered the actual length of the trail we just hiked!!

I can’t recommend this hike enough! It was such a beautiful hike, and the lakes you get to see (specifically Lake Helene and Odessa Lake) aren’t on the “tourist circuit” due to the long hike to get there! Click here to browse all my posts on this incredible hike!

I hope these posts have inspired you to add this hike to your Rocky Mountain itinerary!!

Don’t forget to leave me a comment and let me know what you think!!

Until next time!