Day 6

Today we drove up to Bear Lake to take the Alberta Falls hike. We got up early to beat the crowds. We got lucky and got the first spot. Alberta Falls is a easy 1 mile hike.

Here is a view of the trail.

Here are the kids on the trail.

There were several small streams and water falls along the way. This is one of my favorites.

We crossed paths with a cave bear. Thank goodness it was friendly.

Here is Alberta Falls. Just after we got to the falls someone started frying bacon. It smelled so good.

The kids kept yelling at me when I was taking pictures of the falls. I finally turned around and there was a Stellars Jay. It looks like a blue jay with a mohawk.

I put our camera on a rock and used the timer to take this picture of our family.

I took this picture on the way back. I think it is better that the first one.

After we got back from the falls. We hiked around Bear Lake. It has become a family tradition.  There is  a guide book with 30 points of interest around the lake. We all took turns reading it.

The last item in the book was about this 400 year old pine tree. It has survived fires and storms and it is still going strong.

We went back to the camper and I tried to cook the food we had. We had potatoes, grilled chicken, grilled sausage, and mac & cheese. It was different but good.

Day 5 (Big Horn Sheep and Moose)

The plan today was to drive to “West Horseshoe Park” and look for Big Horn Sheep. I took three pictures of the mountains just as we started. I used a free program called autostitch to make this picture. (You can click on the picture to enlarge it).

We just started driving to that part of the park and I got a text from work. I we needed to drive to Estes Park to get cell service and make sure everything was ok. It turned out my staff had everything under control.

Here is a picture of the Big Thompson River on our way into Estes Park. The snow is melting rapidly and the river is raging!

The first thing we did was to stop at Dairy Queen and get some ice cream.

We spend a few hours checking out the shops on the strip, and then we headed back to the mountains.

We stopped at a overlook and ate our leftover pizza. Then everyone need to “go to the bathroom”. I remembered there was a picnic area by Horseshoe Park and we stopped there.

We had not been on the road we were on, so I decided to drive down it and see where it went. The road went by Alluvial Fan and continued to the Endovalley picnic area.

We came up to a parking lot with a trail and I suggested we check it out. We did not plan on a long hike just a little walk to see where it went. There was  a short trail between two parking lots that went by Lawn Lake Falls, and up on the cliffs by the falls we saw about a dozen Big Horn Sheep. We were incredibly lucky. Five minutes earlier or later and we would have missed them.

Last year all we saw was the picture on the map in the parking lot. This was so much better.

Here is a picture of the kids on the trail.

The Rocky Mountains are being attacked by the pine beetle. This picture really shows what is going on.

You can see some green pine trees, a lot of brown pine trees (these have been killed by the pine beetle), and the light green is where the Aspen trees are filling in. Soon the forests will be taken over by the Aspen trees. Eventually the Aspen will die and the pine trees will flourish again, but that won’t be until my grandkids go camping in the mountains.

We continued driving down the road (we had to stop and hop out to take this picture).

We saw some elk on the side of the road.

At  the end of the road was a beautiful picnic area. I set the camera on a rock and took this picture of us.

 

There are so many great things to take pictures of here is  a grove of Aspen. The trunks of the trees are black because the elk eat the bark and the trees develop black scar tissue.

Did I mention we got so close to a moose we were able to take a picture with it? Too bad it was at the Fall River Visitor Center and not in the wild.

We drove out of the park via the Fall River Entrance and we saw an elk eating out of a bird feeder. This elk is as big as the house. How would you like to look out your window and see that?

We drove through Estes Park and then back into the park via the Beaver Meadows Entrance Station which is right by our campground. We had dinner and then started a fire. August and Ashley roasted the perfect marshmallows.

We finished the night playing  a game of Farkle.

Day 4

Today was a lazy day. We got up late, and we didn’t do much.

We drove back down by the river and took some pictures.

This is Ashley’s favorite flower “Golden Banner”

We ended up in Estes Park. We decided to eat out and we had pizza. We ordered extra, so we could have some for lunch the next day. On our way back to the campsite we stopped at the grocery store.

 

Just out side of town we saw a heard of Elk. We spent the next 20 minutes driving around taking pictures of them.