Rocky Mountain National Park

We just spent 4 days in Rocky Mountain National Park. Every day we discovered new treasures. The first day we ventured out on our favorite hike. We got a nice and early start, packed a picnic lunch and took off for the Bear Lake trail head. From there we hiked up the mountain past Nymph Lake, Dream Lake and our final destination, Emerald Lake where we had planned on having our picnic in front of one of the most awesome vistas in the world. Unfortunately, it started to rain before we reached the top so the sandwiches stayed in the back pack and we ate them in the car on our return. Only pictures can tell this story, but we are very proud of the three children, especially our 5 year old Elise for their stamina and appreciation of God's wonders.

Nymph Lake

Jack always strives for the highest place he can attain.

Dream Lake

That smile on Jack's face made it worth every game of war I had to play to get here.




















Not to be daunted by the rain for the rest of the day, we turned the heat up in the car and headed up Trail Ridge Road which ascends from about 4,000ft to 12,000 feet high above the tree line to the land of the tundra and the Alpine visitor center. Ella kept saying she wanted to touch a cloud, but couldn't quite get it that she was in the clouds. The highlight of the drive was the herd of big horn sheep we spotted at the top.

 

 

The next day while Amy and Jack were trying to get a place on the YMCA zip line, we took the girls over to Moraine Park and let them play in the Big Thompson River for awhile. There is another lovely hiking trail along the river leading up to a small water fall.

 

 

Grand Lake

We met up for lunch then all piled into Don's mini van and headed, once again up Trail Ridge Road in the rain. This time we went all the way across and down the other side to Grand Lake Village. We had an ice cream in the town and headed back stopping along the way to hike a trail to the mouth of the Colorado River. It is just mind boggling that this tiny mountain river is the same one which carved so many canyons on its way to the Pacific Ocean, including the Grand Canyon and Glenwood Canyon which we would soon visit.



 

 

We spotted more wildlife but the best was the moose.

 

All the way back down to camp Don and Amy were sizing up the road and their plan for the next day to bike the entire Trail Ridge Road up to the Alpine Visitor Center where Amy had already spotted a shirt she wanted badly enough to motivate her to complete the feat. They left at dawn, nearly froze to death, but returned triumphantly shirt in hand. Meanwhile, the rest of us were just returning from a lovely breakfast. 

 

After they recovered, cleaned up, and fed themselves, Amy and I took the kids horseback riding.

They were quite the equestrians it turned out, especially Elise who unexpected put her horse into a trot a couple of times and sat it out very well. It was yet another beautiful way to experience this park. I decided I wouldn't have minded being a cowgirl if I had such an interesting environment in which to do it. We learned that all of the trail horses are turned loose in the fall to winter as wild horses in the mountains, then rounded up in the spring and retrained. I thought that was an exciting job for someone.

 This group really knows how to stay on the go, because next we piled into the car and went up Fall River Road to a place called the Alluvial Fan. This is a pile of rocks forming a water fall which came down the mountain in 1982, when a dam burst forming a fan formation. The Parents and kids climbed the rocks to the top of the falls while us old fogies stopped a short ways up. These kids see rocks they climb, they see water they have to get into it so we spent quite a long time enjoying the first great day of warmth and sunshine.

 

Last day in Rocky Mountain Park and would you believe we took one more ride to the top? My husband wanted to see the sites from Trail Ridge Road in the sunshine while my sun was itching to take the Fall River Road (a dirt road) to the top and Trail Ridge Road back down. I am fortunate to have a son who loves to drive and is not inhibited about taking a dirt road the way his father is. So here we were on another adventure exploring a part of this park we had never seen in all the times we have been here.

 

 Anyone who knows me knows that I cannot resist putting my feet in any body of water I encounter and this seems to be an inherited trait. And this is one of the many that we spent time playing in.

This was our Blackhawks shirt day

Near the top and almost back at the Alpine Visitor Center there was a trail which ascended about as high as you can go at this point so of course we had to ascend it. It was quite steep and at 12,000 feet it took me more than a little effort to get to the top long after the younger ones had reached it. However the children were all proud of their Grandma and tried to show it.

Thus ends our stay in Rocky Mountain National Park still a favorite place of ours.