Elevation: 9,940
High altitudes and asthma are not the best of friends, as Logan and I both found Sunday. For our August outing, we drove up into Rocky Mountain National Park and caught a shuttle to the Glacial Gorge Trailhead. [It's possible that the finding of a parking spot was more stressful than the hike itself; we almost got into two car accidents because everyone is thinking the same thing - catch the shuttle to Bear Lake]. Once we found the parking spot and got our nerves under control, we managed to catch a shuttle with no wait at all!
A quick 0.7 miles from the trailhead brought us to Alberta Falls.
I say quick, but in all honesty, it was a struggle. This was our first time hiking in Colorado and neither of us are used to the altitude quite yet. We had to go significantly slower than we're used to, and it took a lot of patience on both of our parts.
We started to get rained on and I was incredibly nervous that we weren't going to get to the lake before it downpoured [even though I've been religiously checking the weather for the past two weeks and it was supposed to be sunny all day] but then we got to this view. I was determined to sit and enjoy Mills Lake even if it did rain.
We spent a good 45 minutes up here picnicking and generally being in awe of where we were. I kept looking at Logan and saying "we live here" - I still don't think it's sunk in that Colorado is a place I get to call home, that I could come here every weekend if I wanted to.
All in all, I'd say it was a successful hike.