Another trip into Rocky Mountain National Park

On Monday, we took the afternoon to tour the East side of the Rocky Mountain National Park. Kerri has never visited the park so it was top priority for a day-off activity. We waited for a weekday to have less of a crowd, but it may have been overkill since we are so far out of season for most visitors to the park. Even though the weather was very sunny and warm, the wind did pickup enough chill from the mountaintop snow to keep us from doing anything too adventurous.

Normally, herds of elk can be seen during peak tourist season which will start in about a month, but this week we only spotted two small females… in town. Big Horn Sheep are also often spotted but they too stayed out of view crushing all the expectations of wildlife viewing I gave Kerri leading up to this day. (Pics from previous visits)

We did conquer the 1/2 mile hike around Sprague Lake which sits at 8,200 feet so the trail was mostly dry with only a few slushy parts in the shade. Snow still covered anything above 9,000 feet meaning that Bear Lake – one of the most popular places to visit in the park – was under snow and ice. The couple hundred feet of trail leading out to the Bear Lake view was so icy that it required extra special attention to prevent falling at every step. Kerri mastered some duck-waddle-walk to at least keep the height of any fall to a minimum. I used my extensive Colorado-living-experience in ice-walking to pull it off, with only a few “whoa” and “”oof” remarks coupled with wildly swinging arms, without falling once. I am certain I impressed her with my ice-walking abilities.