10/10/2026
Caution-long post!
10/8/26-what an adventure. My friend Sarah and I embarked on a hike in RMNP. I downloaded the trail on the AllTrails app and off we went. I brought a bottle of water, she brought water and a few snacks.
I thought we would be back in time for lunch (I do not usually eat breakfast anyway). Well, we went a little further than initially intended. I remembered doing this part of the hike before (to Odessa) and was told if I kept going to Cub Lake I could take a shuttle back to Bear Lake (where my car was parked).
The previous time I had just turned around and went back the way I came, but this time, I looked at AllTrails and it didn’t look much further to go all the way to Cub. I didn’t have cell service, so I couldn’t change my navigation to get the actual distance-but could see the map.
Off we went. The skies got a little dark, it lightly rained while at Odessa. Met a lady there that told us the shuttle went til 7-“you have plenty of time.”
We got to Fern Lake and although the fire from a few years ago made the landscape kind of eerie, it was also beautiful with the new growth.
We kept going…and going…”where is Cub Lake?”…”a few more miles.” Once we got to Cub we discovered we had 2.5 more miles to go. The sun was going down. Although we saw other hikers going the opposite direction (WHY??),
I was still getting a bit nervous.
We finally got towards the end. A bunch of people and a photographer I knew were taking pics of a big herd of elk. The photographer I knew-not super well, we told about our adventure and that we hoped to catch the last shuttle. He said if we needed a ride he could take us.
I didn’t want to inconvenience him. I told him only if we didn’t catch the shuttle. I got over a hill and saw the shuttle driving off. During the hike I had rolled my ankle (but ignored it), my back was killing me from my camera bag, Sarah’s knee was hurting…at that point I really was on the verge of tears.
THANKFULLY the photographer I knew got to where we were shortly after, and saved our day! He didn’t hesitate at all to take us all the way back up to my car (a good 15-20min drive).
A BIG shout out to Aaron Cox for not only being an incredible photographer,
but also for being an awesome human! 👏
If you haven’t heard of him you should check out his work-I wish I could tag him but my page won’t let me.
(All he would accept as a thank you was a cinnamon roll!)
Yes, I learned many lessons on this adventure. So grateful the weather was perfect and the scenery was above and beyond beautiful.
Some of my pics are from my iPhone-don’t really do it justice. Hope you enjoy 😊 (the pictures aren’t in any particular order).
