Justin’s parents have been talking about hiking Flattop Mountain from Bear Lake to Grand Lake for several years. So many years, that we decided to do it 20 years to the month from when they started talking about it. Little did they know that Justin had two bonus missions for them en route - Hallett Peak (bonus 1.2 mi) and Lake Nokoni (bonus 5 mi).

After a long previos day shuttling cars, we woke up bright and early to make sure we had plenty of time for ice cream after. We started from the Bear Lake trailhead around 4:45am.

   

The first section of the hike up to Hallett Peak was the most scenic and the most elevation gain.

 

Along the way, we could see Longs Peak and several climbing and hiking groups summiting for sunrise. Tracing headlamps up the ridge.

   

   

 

   

We almost saw 360 views of Hallett, with the scars from the old glacier being one of our first day time views.

 

 

From the Flattop summit, we did our first out and back to the Hallett Peak summit. We walked by what remains of the Tyndall Glacier.

   

 

 

   

The North Inlet trail down from Flattop we followed a series of cairns wrapping around our descent gully.

 

 

   

Then we began our descent out of the alpine and into the trees to follow the creek the rest of the way down.

   

We eventually reached the fork for Lake Nokoni and made the decision to check it out. We walked over the North Inlet Falls where we had some snacks and began trudging up to the lake. It ended up being the clearest and bluest lake. The detour was worth it, it’s too bad this lake is a 20 mile trip!

 

   

   

From the woods, we emerged into a burn scar. For the entire false flat descent, we baked in the sun and ate wild raspberries.

   

There were several swimming holes as we walked towards Cascade Falls.

   

   

Fin.