Hiking – RMNP - Fern Lake TH - Odessa Lake

Participants from Fort Collins will meet at JJ's at the SW corner of Taft Hill Rd. and Harmony Rd. at 6:00. Participants from the Denver area will arrange a meeting place  to carpool as we get closer to the trip. Everyone will then meet at Beaver Meadows Visitor Center at 7:20 north side of lot to carpool from there and leave there by 7:30. We will need a pass from there to the Fern Lake TH. We will not need a permit to get in the park, that ends on 10-22. We will start the hike at the very end of Moraine Park at the Fern Lake TH parking lot. The gate may be closed by November so that would add another 1.4 miles to our trip. We would then park at the first parking lot opposite the gate.

No technical requirements for this trip.

Odessa Lake is a subalpine lake in the Odessa Gorge. From the Fern Lake TH we will hike 3.8 miles to Fern Lake. We will pass The Pool at the first bridge at about 11/2 miles in, then Fern Falls at 2.6 miles, and continue south as it skirts Fern Lake, then climbs through a scattered boulder field, then reenters the forest  and climbs one mile to the turn off for Odessa Lake. You can see Notchtop Mountain from the lake. We will have our lunch or snack by the lake, wind permitting and then retrace our steps back down the Fern lake TH.