Friday I hiked up to Lawn Lake in RMNP. Mom, Dad, Glenn and I hiked up there back in '73 or '74 before the dam broke in 1982 and caused lots of devastation due to the flood. Ted and I hiked up there sometime before I moved out here and Glenn and I hiked up there after I moved here. All of those times it was just a day hike up to the lake. This time I camped at the lake with the intention to climb some of the high peaks around the lake.

Saturday Rich and I headed up to The Saddle and then summitted RMNP sixth highest peak, Fairchild Mountain (13,502). The weather was clear, not too cool, however at the summit the wind was blowing hard which made it seem quite cold. Along the way there was still quite a bit of snow, but not enough that made hiking difficult. From the summit we could see the Never Summer Range, and this year it appears that they will live up to their name since they are still pretty much covered with snow, which can't be said in recent years. We headed down a slightly different route which avoided crossing the Roaring River once. We then headed over to Crystal Lakes, which are three lovely alpine lakes nestled in at the base of Fairchild's eastern face. After spending about an hour at the lakes we headed back to camp. All told we were away from camp for 8 hours. We had hoped to do Hagues Peak and Mummy Mountain as well, but Fairchild was harder than we thought it would be and Hagues Peak had some snow fields near the summit that looked to be quite steep that we would have had to cross and we just didn't think we were up to it.

Sunday we broke camp and headed back down, however when we got to the Lawn Lake - Black Canyon trail junction, we headed up the Black Canyon trail for about half a mile where we dropped out packs and headed cross country along a broad, flat ridge that has an open forest followed by wide open meadows to the summit of Mount Tileston (11,254). From Tileston's summit there are excellent views of Mummy Mountain, Longs Peak, Ypsilon and Lake Estes along with many of mountains and valleys. Pretty little peak that doesn't get much travel since there are no trails to it. We headed back the 3/4 mile to the trail where we retrieved our packs and then continued back down the Roaring River to the Lawn Lake trailhead and my truck.

Prior to breaking camp that morning I saw two fawns, two does and one buck as they were cavorting around our campsite. They didn't seem too concerned about my presense.