Thunder Lake via Ouzel Falls

For this week's hike Ali and I headed to Rocky Mountain National Park. After going through our usual 20 minutes of, "What hike do you want to go on?" and the typical response of, "I don't care, what hike do you want to go on?" a few times, we finally settled on Ouzel Falls. Once we got there however things looked a tad on the familiar side and we suddenly remembered we did Blue Bird Lake in this area last year. Oh well, there are a few different trails around here so off we went.

To start, this is a fairly popular hike so I recommend getting there before 7:30 if you want a parking spot. Since the first part of the hike is fairly easy and takes you to the falls, it's common for a lot of families to be on the first few miles of the trail. However I wouldn't rush the first part of the hike to get away from everyone as the bulk of the trail is right beside the river and it's very pretty. There are quite a few random smaller falls until it leads up to Ouzel Falls which is where the majority of the families stop. Below are a few pictures of the river and some of the falls.

After the falls we branched right to heard toward Blue Bird, Thunder, and Lion Lake. I enjoyed this part of the trail because you are walking along the side of the valley and it has a good view of the mountains in the distance. It was also pretty shady which was nice since the weather as a tad on the warm side. You'll pass two more branch off spots for Lion and Blue Bird but we decided to head to Thunder Lake. The trail was pretty secluded the day we were there and was a nice mix of some mountain views and being in the forest. The lake itself was your typical end of the hike lake with mountains surrounding it. Below is a picture of Thunder Lake. 

Overall I would definitely recommend this hike. It's good a good mixture of rivers, water falls, mountain views, and lakes. While the falls are probably the most distinguishing factor on this hike, I have no complaints about everything else. Even though AllTrails said it was around 11.5 miles, my Fenix tracked around 14 miles with a 2,386 elevation gain. I know we did a little more walking around than just hitting the trail so that may account for another mile.