Rocky Mountain National Park

I camped about 30 minutes outside of Rocky Mountain National Park.  I’m still not confident on my mountain driving or the power of my RV while towing, so I decided to camp outside of the park.  I stayed in Loveland, CO.  The drive to RMNP was beautiful, it went thru Big Thompson Canyon.  At times there was only room for the road and the river at the bottom of the canyon. 

One of my favorite hikes was from Bear Lake to Emerald Lake. It’s only a couple of miles, but it is all up.  Coming down was much better!! The trail up lead to Nymph, Dream and then Emerald Lake.  The first time I hiked this trail, it was cold and very windy.  I hiked it a few days later with much nicer weather.   On the day I went across the park (the road is 12,000+ ft high at it’s highest point), I saw elk, moose, marmots and lots of chipmunks.  I also hiked up to Alberta falls, but none of my pictures turned out very good. 

 

More Rocky Mountain National Park pictures--

Very close to my campground was an “Open air” space (I think it’s just a county park) called “Devil’s Backbone”.  Since I’m into rock formations, I found it very interesting.  I took the 3.5 mile loop trail to get a closer look.

There was a plant that I found very interesting at this park, if anyone knows what this is let me know.

I also hiked Gem Lake, which I found out was part of the RMNP.  I had read that it was an easy hike, but I don’t think I would have labeled it that.  It was 1.7 miles up and a lot of it was very rocky.  But it was well worth it.  The view going up was great, even with the clouds coming in.  The lake and surrounding area was wonderful.   It was a beautiful place for lunch, the picture below was taken from my lunch spot!

One thing I had to do this past week was to get my hair cut by an unknown stylist.  This may not be a problem for some, but the same hair stylist has cut my hair for many years so it was a difficult thing to do.  Oh well, it will grow back and I’ll be able to have my regular hair stylist fix my hair in November!