Rocky Mountain National Park Lakes

All of these pictures are lakes (some the same lake from a different angle) of lakes we saw on one hike we took.  I believe there were a total of three lakes (Dream, Nymph, and Emerald).  I thought Emerald Lake was the most beautiful.  However it was sprinkling rain when we were there so we were afraid to stay for very long because we don't have very good raincoats.

Rock Mountain National Park---IV

All these pictures were taken from the visitors center on Trail Ridge Road.  As you can see there is still quite a bit of snow.  We normally see elk there but we didn't this time.  We had seen a bunch shortly before we got to the visitors center so I would assume that they were the ones we normally see.

In the picture below you can see a gravel road.  It is called the Old Fall River Road and we wanted to drive up it again on this visit but it wasn't open.  We were so disappointed.  It's normally open by July 4th (we were there on the 27th or 28th) but they had so much snow that it still wasn't open.  To make matters worse they told us it was going to open the following weekend. :(  We've always loved driving up it.  It's a gravel, one way, steep and winding road but it sure is fun to drive up it and take in the scenery.

Rock Mountain National Park---III

The picture below is an open meadow where the Bighorn sheep come to graze and get water.  When we got there in the even there were none in the field as you can obviously see.

However, it wasn't long before we spotted them coming down the mountain.  There were 15 of them and one of them was obviously the leader because when he stopped they all stopped.  They crossed the road about 50-100 feet from the parking lot and went out into the meadow.

The pictures below are just scenes from the drive up Trail Ridge Road to the visitor center.  These pictures are from the next day after we saw the sheep.  The weather was nice so it was really, really beautiful.

Rocky Mountian National Park -- II

If you've never been to Rocky Mountain National Park you have been deprived. :) It is a beautiful park with lots of trails and lots of beautiful scenery. One of the first hikes we took was up to Alberta Falls. If I recall correctly it was about 1.5 miles up to the falls.  It was almost impossible and dangerous to get a shot of the falls head-on so I just took what I could get (first 2 photos) without taking chances.

After the falls we headed up another trail that went to three lakes...Nymh Lake, Dream Lake, and Emerald Lake. I think it was around 1.8 miles up to it but it was a beautiful hike.  On the way up we saw some elk and as you can see from the picture below one of them was posing for us.  When we came back down the trail a big buck was standing 5 or 6 feet from the trail and there was really no way to go around him.  Of course people were standing there with cameras in his face taking pictures. He would get real alert once in a while and look at them and then go back to eating.  We waited until he had his head down eating and zoomed by....wild animals are unpredictable so I do NOT take chances with them.

Of course while we were close we walked out to Bear Lake.  I'm sure Betsy and George have a similar picture to the picture below.

Rocky Mountian National Park

Before I go to far I would like for you to see a short video. This was taken at our reunion. They had a ropes course and of course Allison had to do it. One of the things they could do is climb a telephone pole (it had steps so it wasn't hard to climb) and do the following.


George and Betsy will probably remember the following scenes in Rocky Mountain National Park. The video is of Horseshoe Park...Alluvial Fan. You can read a short summary about it here.  The other pictures were taken on the way to the top.  The weather was not very good the first time up.  We ran into some rain but  still managed to get some pictures although not very good ones.