RMNP - Sprague to Nymph Lake out-back

RMNP - Sprague to Nymph Lake out-back

Monday's hike was cancelled due to the big snow storm that hit.  I ended up spending Monday shoveling snow off the driveway and decks.  I delayed planning this trip until the last minute.  With all the new snow, I decided to tackle something familiar, so I went to RMNP and tackled the Sprague Lake to Nymph Lake trails.  This is a popular area in RMNP so I assumed that the trails had been tromped on by many people since Monday.  I was correct.

The trail has a moderate uphill from Sprague Lake to the Glacier Gorge Trail junction, then climbs at a more strenuous incline to Nymph Lake.  The original plan was to possibly tackle the trail to Dream Lake, but I was stopped by another snowshoe failure!  This turned out to be the same failure as before, but on the other snowshoe.  At least I know how to fix it.

With all the new snow the look of the trail was a bit different than usual.  I did take a few pictures.

The wind was blowing pretty hard up high on the mountain

Quite a bit of snow on the top of these rocks

A closer look at a snow capped rock

Typical trail conditions

Overall Track Statistics for RMNP - SpragueNymph,   1123 data points

 Length 7.111 miles  :  Garmin Length 7.358 miles

 Start Elevation - 8721.39 feet

 Maximum Elevation - 9740.42 feet

 Minimum Elevation - 8699.08 feet

 Date of Hike - Feb 05, 2016

 Start Time - 08:41 AM

 End Time - 11:53 AM

 Total Duration -     3:12 hours:min

 Total Ascent - 1388.39 feet

 Total Descent - 1400.20 feet

 Net Ascent - -11.81 feet

 Maximum Grade - 12.61%

 Average Speed -  2.22 mph :  Garmin Average Speed  2.29 mph

 Maximum Ascent over Mile - 541.37 feet

 Maximum Speed over Mile -  2.79 mph

 Maximum Gain over Mile (%) -  9.82%