Chapter 1 Rocky Mountain National Park

We started our National Park tour in Denver, Colorado. It was just over an hour drive from there to Rocky Mountain National Park. There was sooo much space around us as we drove - it was refreshing.

At the park entrance we purchased our America the Beautiful National Park Pass. The pass works for over 2,000 federal recreation sites and only costs $80. Individual entrance fees for each park are about $35 so depending on how many parks you visit, this is a nice little trick to save money.

Once in the park, we made our way to the park and ride station at Bear Lake and caught the free shuttle to Glacier Gorge. We planned to do the hike to Alberta Falls and then continue on to Sky Pond.

The week prior to the trip, Colorado underwent a pretty solid snowstorm. We were hoping that by the time we got to the parks, the weather would have warmed up and the snow would have melted. This was not the case.

This is the trail up to Alberta Falls. Hiking poles and spikes would have been nice to have, but we didn't have any so we just picked up some sticks to help us out. It wasn't long before we made it to the falls.

It was a little tough to find the trail that continued on to Sky Pond, but we lucked out made some friends who were headed in the same direction.

As we hiked the blue in the sky started to disappear.

We didn't see very many people on the trail with us after the fork. But there must have been more hikers in the morning because the path was packed down - which was good because we wouldn't get lost, bad because the packed snow was suuuper slippery.

Somehow we slipped and slid all the way to the top of the hill. Our all "eco hiking poles" helped out a ton! We took a break at Loch Vale. By the time we got there, the snow was falling even harder.

Sky Pond was still 2 miles away and the footsteps and trail began to disappear into the snow. We thought about 5 seconds before deciding that we probably should turn back. You know, with the disappearing trail and all. There was another short hike that we could do anyways. Mill's Lake was just a mile in the other direction from the fork.

We saw a few familiar faces back at the fork. They gave us a few tips on how to follow the trail. It was a little tricky with all the river crossing!

When we got to Mill's Lake, the thunder started to get louder and more frequent. We grabbed a few quick snaps and turned back.

To our surprise, about a minute after turning around, the sky cleared up! So we stopped to have our lunch (sandwiches) and enjoy the break in the weather.

After we finished lunch it was a long, long hike back to Alberta Falls and then to the park and ride. But since we got an early start, we were back at the car by 5pm. And the campsite, Morraine Campground, was just up the road so we reached it in no time.

The sandwiches were a pretty light lunch we were already starving for dinner once we got to the campsite. We warmed up some Trader Joe's burritos.

The campgrounds were at 8,000 feet, it was kinda difficult getting the fire started. We barely managed to warm up the burritos. But how could we camp without making smores?? So we ate smores! We just... didn't melt the marshmallows. lol!

We were sooo tired after that. We brushed out teeth, set up our car for sleeping! This was our first time car camping. It was quite glamorous compared to our trial run back at Aiea Loop Trail - when we were trying to figure out how to camp without poles - can't bring poles carry on on the airplane and wanted to save by not checking in any bags.

We put the food in the bear lockers and the bags in the front of the car. We put the back seats down and pumped up the air mattress. We didn't get to shower, there were only hang showers there. Lucky it was soo cold we didn't get too gross hiking!

We fought off sleep so that we wouldn't wake up too early the next day. We barely made it to 8pm!

I did wake up a couple times to what sounded like hail on the car. But for the most part, it was a sound sleep and we rested well for the next day.