bridal veil falls hike

My trusty Rocky Mountain National Park: The Complete Hiking Guide says that spring is the best time to hike up to Bridal Veil Falls because “snowmelt creates a gushing torrent that is unequalled in other seasons.” And I’m sure that’s true if you’re just strictly talking about the falls… but the hike itself will be much prettier in either early summer (after the numerous aspens along the trail have started to leaf) or fall (when those same aspens are changing color). So with that little disclaimer out of the way…


The 3.1 mile hike to Bridal Veil Falls starts off from the Cow Creek Trailhead in the northeast section of RMNP. To get there, take MacGregor Avenue out of Estes Park and stay on it as it turns to Devils Gulch Road. After driving for almost 3 ½ miles, watch for the well-marked entrance to McGraw Ranch Road on the left. This dirt road will wind around and up & down for 2.2 miles until you reach the Continental Divide Research Learning Center at the old McGraw Ranch site. You’ll need to park out alongside the road, and there’s only room for a dozen or fifteen vehicles. The hike begins here at the trailhead at an elevation of 7,820 feet and climbs to 8,880 feet at the waterfall.

Once you walk past the large barn & other buildings that make up the research facility, the wide trail (above) heads out through lovely meadows alongside meandering Cow Creek. Lumpy Ridge will be off to your left and wooded, granite outcrops loom above you to the right. The trail continues to parallel Cow Creek, but it quickly narrows as it heads up into stands of aspen & conifer trees (below).

Two miles of hiking will bring you to a trail junction (below). The main trail will go off to the left, but you’ll want to bear right and head northwest to Bridal Veil Falls. The trail begins to get noticeably steeper from this point, but it’s nothing a seasoned hiker like you can’t handle with ease. Quite a bit of the tangled forest along this section was looking rather drab when I hiked it yesterday, but- like I said at the top of the post- I’m sure it’d be much prettier after the trees have started to leaf or in the fall when the numerous aspens along the trail are changing.

You’ll cross a few small footbridges as you continue making your way up toward the falls.

The trail steepens considerably as the rugged canyon you’re heading up begins to narrow and you approach the waterfall. As you huff & puff a bit up the final, rocky stretch and finally reach your destination, you’ll find that the quarters around the base of the falls are kinda tight & you’ll understand why most photos you see of the cascade are from the same basic vantage point there on the east side of the creek.


Supposedly, if you cross the creek over to the west bank, you can then make your way up above the falls and you’ll find a picturesque scene as the creek plummets down some granite steps before reaching the dropoff for the falls. I’m usually up for stuff like that, but the lively amount of runoff/mist pouring over the falls and the height of the water in the creek meant I’d get pretty well soaked trying it, so I passed. I imagine it’d be a much easier proposition in summer, once less water is tumbling over the falls & the creek isn’t so rambunctious.

I arrived at the falls about an hour & a half after sunrise and had a tough time with the contrast difference between the sunlit trees up above the cliff wall and the shadowed waterfall & creek in the gorge below. I also, of course, wanted to get that “flowing,” silky-effect with the water. So what I finally ended-up doing is using two exposures- one exposed for the trees above and another for the falls & creek below- and in the Editor of Photoshop Elements, I dragged one image (the one exposed for the shadows) onto the other (the one exposed for the highlights) as if I were creating a new layer. Then I used the Eraser tool to rub out the “bad” trees on the top image and reveal the correctly exposed trees on the image below. This took a bit of fiddling around, but I finally messed around with it enough that a half-way decent image emerged. If I were going to do this again, I’d probably arrive a bit later in the day when the sun would be higher in the sky, or just choose a cloudy day to do the hike… either way, the entire scene would be more evenly lit.

Thanks for reading about stuff I’ve photographed. ~ Rich