Rocky Mountain National Park
What was on my mind -- getting as high as possible atop the Rocky Mountains. What was on my daughter's mind -- a headache from the altitude. I love mountains, I've always been more of a mountain person than a beach person. Unfortunately, for my beach-loving daughter, most of our family live in the mountains, and therefore we vacation there far more often.
After meeting my brother and sister-in-law, their granddaughters (my grand-nieces) and my sister-in-laws parents, we all piled into two vehicles and left Denver headed for the mountains. We crossed the continental divide at Berthold Pass and the kids threw snowballs at each other.
We spent the night at Shadow Mountain Lake/ Grand Lake. the town of Grand Lake is a great little town. We went through the Kauffman museum in town. I figured that this Ezra Kauffman may have been related to my Kauffman's back along the line. (I'll have to look him up when I get back home).
We all seem to like waterfalls a lot, so we took a short hike to Adams Falls on Monday, and I planned a longer hike (6.8 miles) on Tuesday to Cascade Falls in RMNP (elevation maybe 8500 ft.) for just the four of us. (Greg's crew having gone back to Denver.) The falls were wonderful, but hiking in the Rockies just isn't the same as hiking in PA. The combination of altitude and a cold had Gretchen gasping for breath. Poor kid, but she's tough and she's a trooper. However the 1 mile hike that I had planned for the day at 12,000 ft. had to be cancelled. We did at least get out of the car and took lots of photos.
As we drove up the mountain, Gretchen at first couldn't believe that the road went above the tree line. Then when we got there she was very dismayed to see snow BELOW us. "That's just not right."
In the park, we did get to see lots of wildlife. We saw two moose while hiking to Cascade Falls, and many herds of elk along Trail Ridge Road. We also saw marmots (sort of like a groundhog) and pikas (squirrel-like). The only thing that I had hoped for but didn't get to see were bighorn sheep.
Anyway, our trip through the park concluded at Estes Park. More on Estes Park later....
Photos are on Flickr at : http://www.flickr.com/photos/nhallberg/sets/
After meeting my brother and sister-in-law, their granddaughters (my grand-nieces) and my sister-in-laws parents, we all piled into two vehicles and left Denver headed for the mountains. We crossed the continental divide at Berthold Pass and the kids threw snowballs at each other.
We spent the night at Shadow Mountain Lake/ Grand Lake. the town of Grand Lake is a great little town. We went through the Kauffman museum in town. I figured that this Ezra Kauffman may have been related to my Kauffman's back along the line. (I'll have to look him up when I get back home).
We all seem to like waterfalls a lot, so we took a short hike to Adams Falls on Monday, and I planned a longer hike (6.8 miles) on Tuesday to Cascade Falls in RMNP (elevation maybe 8500 ft.) for just the four of us. (Greg's crew having gone back to Denver.) The falls were wonderful, but hiking in the Rockies just isn't the same as hiking in PA. The combination of altitude and a cold had Gretchen gasping for breath. Poor kid, but she's tough and she's a trooper. However the 1 mile hike that I had planned for the day at 12,000 ft. had to be cancelled. We did at least get out of the car and took lots of photos.
As we drove up the mountain, Gretchen at first couldn't believe that the road went above the tree line. Then when we got there she was very dismayed to see snow BELOW us. "That's just not right."
In the park, we did get to see lots of wildlife. We saw two moose while hiking to Cascade Falls, and many herds of elk along Trail Ridge Road. We also saw marmots (sort of like a groundhog) and pikas (squirrel-like). The only thing that I had hoped for but didn't get to see were bighorn sheep.
Anyway, our trip through the park concluded at Estes Park. More on Estes Park later....
Photos are on Flickr at : http://www.flickr.com/photos/nhallberg/sets/
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