Exploring the Home State - Wild Basin

Wild Basin is in the southeast corner of Rocky Mountain National Park, about 20 miles from Estes Park. We took CO HWY 7 from our homestead, traveled through Boulder and up through the canyon to the Wild Basin Trailhead. Not so many tourists here, and that was good. The trail parallels the river and was cool and shaded. A fairly moderate and flat trail to Calypso Falls, but it was pretty much uphill stairs on uneven rocky ground to the Ouzel Falls. Not as rocky as Zion and we weren’t hiking in the river this time. The scenery was lush and green, wild flowers were in bloom and the dark thundering clouds rolled in as we reached the Ouzel Falls and witnessed some pretty dramatic lightening. Light rain at first then the drops got bigger. Some of the streams we crossed on the way up had considerably more water on the way back. We were fortunate that the heavy, heavy downpour didn’t occur until we were on the road to Estes Park. Made for a rather treacherous trip down the mountain. We finished off the evening at Flavor of India in Longmont - awesome food!!