Rocky Mountain National Park – 2021, Epic Road Trip v3

Days 14-17 of Epic Road Trip v3: Rocky Mountain National Park.  Colorado, how I love thee!!  After all of the rocks (amazing, but a lot) it was so good to get back into the greenery of Colorado.  Day 14 was spent on the road because it was a long drive between Moab UT and Estes Park CO where we were camping. It was almost a 10 hour drive.  Our campsite was in Estes park at the Hermit Park Open Space campground.  This is a primitive campground up in the mountains, with stone and dirt roads.  In fact, the day we arrived we were told that a bear had been spotted in the camping area.  Wilderness!  This is what the area right beyond our camper looked like…

We settled in and were able to enjoy another campfire, which we were unable to do in Utah.  

Day 15: Rocky Mountain National Park is using a reservation system right now to limit the number of people in the park and help with overcrowding.  I think the system was great! We didn’t have to wait in a huge line to enter the park and we could find a parking spot.  Our pass was for Bear Lake, which is an area with a lot of trails. 

We did a 6 mile hike in the morning to Emerald Lake and Lake Haiyaha.  Wow, what amazingly clear and blue lakes!!


We enjoyed our lunches on rocks along the shore.  

In the afternoon we listened to our GyPSy audio tour and drove up to the Alpine visitors center. It felt like we were on the top of the world!

We saw a large herd of elk, and also stopped to see a moose hiding along the river.  I have circled him because it took me a really long time to figure out where the heck he was!

At night we enjoyed another campfire and got to stargaze. Every night has been cloudy on our trip and this was first night we got to see all of the amazing stars!

Day 16: Ouzel Falls was the destination of our hike.  Once again, it was a beautiful path through the very green forest with huge granite rocks along the way.

After our hike we went into Estes Park.  The first stop was the Stanley Hotel which was the inspiration for the book The Shining, by Stephen King. It is also the filming location of the movie Dumb and Dumber.  Some say it’s haunted!

We walked along the river in town before dinner and did some shopping.  What a beautiful little town!

Day 17: we decided to make the most of our last day of hiking at this beautiful park, so we picked a long hike which advertised that we would need to “hike up the side of a waterfall”.  What?  The trail was to Sky Pond.   Beautiful scenery and lots of stairs on the way.

We made it to the waterfall!  

It also had snow!

And then we learned what was meant by “climb up the side of a waterfall”!  It was a steep climb with not many footholds to use.  We also had to pass people or let them go by us.  All while a little stream of water came down!

The climb was worth it though.  Sky Pond was at the top!  What a beautiful view.  This was our favorite hike so far at Rocky Mountain park.  It was a 3 hour hike with additional time for lunch along the way.  Garmin said it was 6 miles round trip.

Up near the top of the mountain we saw one of my favorite animals – a pika!  These are a relative of the rabbit and are just as cute.  They only live in high altitudes.  Adorable!

We celebrated our hike, and last night of vacation (before the long drive home!) with some DQ.  Yum! RMNP was the perfect place to end our long trip.

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