Brinda's Head West!: RMNP Camping

On our third day of camping, it rained most of the day, so we didn't do a whole lot. Although during the brief period when it wasn't raining, Carlton decided Gavin should try riding his bike without training wheels. They had gone for a bike ride around the campground and one of Gavin's training wheels had come off but he kept riding for a good 200 yards before he even knew it! So they tried taking both training wheels off. Here's a video of his first attempt:

Day four we did a scenic drive through the park to see other areas and find more wildlife. We got some great views of the mountains and animals!

Elk!

Ground squirrel in the Sheep Lakes area.

Sheep Lakes area - lots of Bighorn Sheep in the mountains behind us but we kept missing them.

Lots of snow in the mountains still, so there were several of these small waterfalls along the side of the road.

The Hidden Valley area had a Junior Ranger activity where the kids got to use a kit to explore the area. They had a magnifying glass, compass, thermometer, binoculars, and an info sheet. We started with the Ranger cutout pics.

Testing the water temperature - I believe it was around 40 degrees!

Examining the water and soil more closely.

The kids kept taking turns holding Christine's hand during the different walks.

Examining lichen on a boulder.

Ranger talk with different samples of animals - marmot skin, beaver tail, owl wing, etc.

Cute little marmot we found in the higher elevation area of the park. We drove out to the Alpine Visitor's Center which is at the highest elevation of the park at 11,790 feet. We were snowed on and rained on during our drive!

This marmot was quite large! Clearly not as active as the other one - this one was hanging out by the wall of a scenic viewpoint.

Avery looking over the wall at the large marmot.

This was lava cliffs although everything was covered in snow, so I am not sure what it really looks like. We were supposed to see a layer of volcanic rock.

I zoomed in on this glacial lake up in the mountains.

This is the alluvial fan which turned out to be a giant waterfall.

After we finished our scenic drive, we needed to go into Estes Park for groceries and we decided to stop at the Stanley Hotel to walk around. It was where they filmed The Shining and Dumb and Dumber. See if you recognize any areas.