Colorado Vacation: Rocky Mountain National Park

Sigh. The last major vacation post. And I’ve saved the best for last. Because as fun as Denver was, and as much as we adored everything Estes Park, Rocky Mountain National Park was the absolute highlight of our trip.

Pictures (especially mine) won’t do it justice if you’ve never been there. Just trust me; make plans to visit next summer with your family. You won’t be sorry.

I’d been to RMNP once, as a 20-year-old, with my family, but we only drove Trail Ridge Road; no hiking on that trip, as we were actually vacationing in Breckenridge and just made a quick trip over to RMNP. So I knew a bit about the park, but not much.

I asked Jamie, Colorado expert, a million questions beforehand, and she was so gracious in answering every last one! I also posted a couple of questions on Facebook and got some great feedback from other friends who’ve been, and a friend of Matt’s emailed us a long list of favorites…so helpful. So we went armed with information about what hikes would be good for the boys. And all of them walked the WHOLE time, even Jack Henry! He only got picked up once for about 5 minutes after falling on a trail. They rocked.

Did you know that it only costs $20/car for a week’s entry into the park? So 3 days of entertainment for our whole family = $20. Thank you, National Parks System. And thank you, U of I class on National Parks and Monuments (aka Rocks for Jocks, a class that Matt and I, though not jocks, took because it was something we could take together), for inspiring me years ago to want to see things like this.

Here’s how we broke it down:
Day 1: Hikes: Bear Lake (1/2 mile), Alberta Falls (almost a mile), Nymph Lake (1/2 mile), Alluvial Fan (not much)
Day 2: Drove Trail Ridge Road in its entirety, stopping as we wanted. Hikes: Adams Falls (1/2 mile) and Coyote Valley Trail (less than 1/2 mile, and not one we’d do again…boring, and because the river was high, there was no where to play in the water at all)
Day 3: Hike: Sprague Lake (1/2 mile, but it’s really just a walking trail), a little more driving through the park (past my obsession, the Alluvial Fan, again – its history is fascinating); boys become Junior Rangers (if you go with kids, absolutely stop by a visitor’s center right when you get there and get the little booklet).

And a ton of pictures…

heading to bear lake!

we have several pictures of the boys like this…luke and bennett up high on a boulder, jack henry about 2 steps from the bottom :)

see? here’s another one.

bear lake…that view behind us is what you see on the back of the colorado state quarter.

on the way to alberta falls…we had to walk in the freezing cold stream (as opposed to taking the bridge and staying dry…this was my idea!)

the view from the top at alberta falls…cool, but really difficult for the kids to see without practically falling in.

jack henry and i took a little break at nymph lake while the other 3 went on to a slightly higher point…

our first elk spotting!

the big thompson river

bridge on the way to the alluvial fan

hiding out under some boulders at the alluvial fan

jack henry getting brave at the alluvial fan, climbing up high with dad!

isn’t that beautiful?

on day 2, i remembered to stop and take a picture by the entrance!

the alluvial fan from up a little higher on trail ridge road

near the top…it was CHILLY!

in the tundra. beautiful and cold!

boys at the alpine visitor’s center

at milner’s pass/the continental divide.

at milner’s pass…every moment we spent in rmnp made me wish i had a nice camera.

adams falls! we thought we might see a moose on this trail, but no.

our view about half the time…the rest of the time, we were saying, “c’mon boys, keep up!”

on coyote valley trail. note jh’s mad face over not getting to use a walking stick before it was purposely broken by bennett.

tons of elk in the valley behind us as we made our way back along trail ridge road!

sprague lake…an absolutely gorgeous morning!

little illini boys :)

matt at sprague lake. the boys are on the other side of that bridge…

…playing in the stream!

me at sprague lake

new junior rangers. the ranger made a big deal of it, going through their books with them and then announcing to everyone in the visitor’s center that he had 3 new junior rangers in the building!