Day 4 (8 miles 1185 feet)

Today we went hiking. Last year we started a couple of trails but did not finish them, so this year we were going to hike the whole trail.  We weren’t planning to hike them all at once, but that is what we ended up doing.

Here we are at the start of our day of hiking. There were two trails we wanted to hike: Cub Lake, and Fern Falls. We started at Fern Falls. The trail to Fern Falls is 2.5 miles and you climb 645 feet.

 

Here is a picture of the kids on the way to the falls.

 

 

 

 

 

Right after the picture above we ran into a white tailed ptarmigan hen and 5 chicks. They were so cute. Everything was cool until the hen decided we were too close and she raised here feathers and charged us. We got out of there and didn’t look back.

The trail follows the Big Thompson River.

 

 

 

 

 

Here we are at the Pool just before our climb to Fern Falls.

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the kids on the way to the falls.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally at Fern Falls, but this is not the end of the hike it is just the beginning.  After we hiked down from the falls we had a choice of hiking back to the car 1.7 miles or we could go to Cub Lake. Colleen thought the 1.2 miles to Cub Lake would get us to the parking lot that was 1.1 miles from our car, but Cub Lake is 2.3 miles from the parking lot, so we had almost 5 more miles to go.  The trail to Cub Lake also included a 545 foot climb. As we were climbing we kept thinking we were at the top, but Alexis who was out front scouting kept pointing up. And we went up and up and up. Was it worth it. Take a look.

We thought the view was spectacular.

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the kids on their way down to the lake.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the view from the lake looking back at the mountains. Awesome!

 

 

 

 

We left at 10 in the morning and this picture was a 4 PM when we were walking the last mile back to the car.

 

 

 

We were all exhausted what a day! After our hike we met up with Colleen’s Dad (who drove up from Arizona to see us). He was staying in Estes Park, so we went out for pizza. We only packed snacks for our hike, and we were starving. The pizza was great.

 

What did we learn:

Make sure everyone understands that Cub Lake is not at the parking lot.

If you get a crew cut you head can get sunburned (Tim says ouch)

Ashley is heavy -  Colleen, Alyssa and I all took turns carrying her.

Coming soon:

Day 5 – Estes Park shopping and Bear Lake

Day 6 – Trail Ridge Road.