Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Rocky Mountain National Park



On Saturday, we left the house early, and headed to Rocky Mountain National Park.  We drove up Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park.  You can read about it, but basically it is famous because it is the highest paved road in the US.  It is typically open from Memorial day to Labor day (this year it opened late because of all the snow).


 
Part way up, they have a scenic area and a trail…but the trail was covered in snow…but that didn’t stop us:








 

Kevin and Florian had a short snowball fight :-)
 

 



After we stopped here, we kept driving, we had a little further to get to the top.  Here the clouds were just really low, it sorta looks like it was snowing, but it was not, just low low clouds, it was really neat. 



Getting closer to the top:


The highpoint on the road, right before we get to the visitor center: (12 204.7244 feet)




At the visitor center:


 

On our way back down the road as we headed towards Bear Lake, we saw a large herd of Elk


 


 

Then also in the park, we went to Bear Lake, it is a nice very short hike around the lake and beautiful scenery….we always stop at this same spot and take pictures with our kids….kind of funny…








As you start getting towards the top of the mountain the temperature really changes.   In the town of Estes Park, it was about 80 degrees (26C), at Bear Lake around 65 (18C), and at the top?  A cool 45 (7C)…  

After we finished in the park, we went to Estes Park, and had lunch and walked the town looking in all the little shops.   It was a good day, we finished just in time before the rain came.  



1 comment:

Florians Mum said...

Great pictures, For us that was the first time we have seen the spots and only with Florian ;o))) The top look a little like our Alpen. Did Florian mention that he will skiing there after Christmas? I want to see the elks too.
Thanks for posting.
But I've seen that Florian took pictures too.