Estes Park

Thursday, July 30, 2009


Well, it's not Colorado Springs, but close enough. Today we went hiking in Estes Park, CO. It was unusually cold, about 47 degrees and cloudy. We entered the park through the Beaver Meadows entrance and began hiking on the Glacier Gorge Trail head. It is a very nice, easy, and well-maintained trail. The entire family hiked to Alberta Falls. As you can tell from the picture, it was very cloudy and hazy. We climbed up some rocks to try to get to the top of the falls. It would have been a much nicer view on a sunny day. The boys hiked to The Loch, Lake Haiyaha, Nymph Lake and back to meet us at Bear Lake. They even found some snow.

On Friday, we had much better weather. Sunny and about 50 degrees. What a difference the sun makes. Today we took a tour of some waterfalls. A total of 3 waterfalls and 6 miles of hiking. Again very nice, easy, well-maintained trails. We entered the Rocky Mountain National Park through the Wild Basin entrance and began our hike on the Wild Basin tail head. You really need to get here early for a parking spot close to the trail head. There is no bus service in this part of the park. It was a short hike to Copeland Falls.

Next up, Calypso Cascasdes. Very impressive.













And finally, Ouzel Falls. This was well worth the extra hike and, according to my boys, worth getting up at 6:30 am. We tried to climb as close to the top as possible.















Next visit, I would like to stay in Estes Park and visit more waterfalls and lakes.


Happy Hiking,

Cindy