Rocky Mountain National Park Pictures

Here are some pictures from our first stop.  Well first two stops, we got a early start after I finished work on Thursday pulling in late just to sleep at a Nebraska National Forest campground right in the middle of Nebraska.  It was a nice campground from what I saw of it when we pulled out in the morning.  We got to Rocky Mountain National Park without too much trouble (we wore a hole through one of our drain line end caps and had a leak that took us days to fix).  Our campsite had a tremendous view.  It overlooked the Moraine Park and had snow capped mountains in the background.  There's just no way to explain how amazing it was, even the pictures below don't do it justice.  I had a hike to Sky Pond that I was obsessed with and really wanted us to take so we decided to take it the first day since we had just been in the car for 13 hours over two days and if we were overly tired from it we could just lay around the rest of our visit. The hike was brutal to say the least, quite a bit of ice and snow yet the second half of the accent which justified me buying crampons for everyone (Bec thought I was crazy when I ordered them).  We didn't make it to sky pond but made it to Timberline Falls a climb up a waterfall and 1/2 mile short of our goal but it was enough.  It was about a 8 mile hike since we didn't make it all the way to sky pond, but my fitbit tracked 30k steps and 158 floors for the day.  Easily the highest I've ever recorded.  Everyone did really well, Marc complained quite a bit going up but was happy as a clam on the way down.  Luke got over hungry at the top and we were a worried for a bit of altitude sickness but he calmed down after some mac and cheese for lunch and proceeded to have a blast sliding down any snow hill he could find (the kids burned so much extra energy climbing rocks and sliding in the snow when it wasn't necessary). The hike was a highlight off the stop for me.  The next day we took it easy, explored Estes Park a little got the fitting for our camper and got some other unnecessary shopping in.  Then we hung around the campsite and continued to rest up.  The final day in the park we took the trail ridge road and checked out the tundra and confirmed that we didn't want to pull the camper up that thing the next day and we'd go the southern route to Dinosaur National Park instead. 

 

Nebraska National Forest Campsite

Moraine Park Campground, our view was great

Another shot from our campsite

It was just too much

Before the big hike to Timberline Falls

Alberta Falls on the way

Looking Professional

Keep going

We hit snow right before the Loch pictured in the background

From there on it was on and off snow

Getting close to the top Luke and the rest of us are gassed

Timberline falls and the snow field to get to the climb

Lucas hanging out in the boulder field after lunch

Becky and Marc made their way to the base of the climb.  She's loving the crampons now.

On the way down we got off trail a bit in the snow but corrected course after a few 100 feet

Back at the Loch, Bec and Marc letting their dogs bark

The Loch was beautiful

Samus took a rest at the Loch, my phone died and I didn't any after shots

Tiny Town mini-golf, the 2nd Best mini-golf course I've ever played.

View from Trail ridge road

Frozen Tundra

Survey Marker at the end of a trail on top of a big rock formation.  12300 ft.

Irene Lakes on the west side

More snow fun getting to and from the lake