After our week in Moab, we traded the red, rock mountains for the lush, green mountains and rivers of Colorado. A few years ago we visited Estes Park, and we loved it so much that’s where we decided to go for the second half of this trip. We decided we wanted to enjoy the slower paced life in the mountains and didn’t pack every minute of our days during this trip.
One of our favorite things to do at Estes Park is visit Rocky Mountain National Park and drive up Falls River Road to look for wildlife. We actually did this multiple times on our this trip, and each time we saw different things. The first day we were able to find an elk by the stream.
The second time when we went up the road we didn’t see much, but when we came down the other side of the mountain, we saw an entire herd of Elk. Parking on this part of the mountain was tough, so we had to pass it quite a ways and I walked back to capture this image of this guy. You can see more in the background, but that’s not even half of how many were out there.
One morning we drove down the Big Thompson. We fly fished on this river the last time we visited, and this river is one of my favorites.
This fella was just relaxing on the side of the road near where we were staying.
Last time we visited Rocky Mountain National Park, we didn’t get to do any hiking, which I was kind of bummed about. We were able to do a ton of other things that I loved, but along with a major parking issue in the park where we wanted to go, we just kind of ran out of time for hiking. This year they had implemented timed entry for parts of the park, which helped make parking where we wanted to be much easier! We took a day, and went to Bear Lake, and then hiked up to Nymph Lake and Dream Lake. Aside from Bear Lake, it was pretty much all up hill, but the views were worth it! I really do just love getting out and spending time in nature!
The next morning, we went back up Falls River Rd and saw a moose eating on the side of the mountain!
And that afternoon, we went up one last time, and this gigantic Elk walked right down the road and past our jeep! If David wanted to, he could have reached out the side of the car and touched him he was that close! Not expecting an Elk to come right by our car, I had my zoom lens on and wasn’t really prepared for this shot but this is the best I could do with that zoom lens. They really are magnificent creatures!
It was a great trip, we had the best time and just enjoyed unplugging for a bit and not having to work or worry about real life!
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