The next day we drove for a while towards Estes Park, which was going to be our camping spot for the night. It’s a really cool spot – right outside Rocky Mountain National Park. The camp site was mostly empty and had great views of the snow capped mountains in the distance. Erika was pleased because it had hot showers (I didn’t mind either).
That night we just chilled and made dinner. We cooked some sausages over the fire. It had been a while since I cooked like that. Reminiscent of Australia.
The next day we got an early start and went into the national park. The lines were super long getting in, even though it was officially off-season for the park. The main road, Trail Ridge Road, was closed. It doesn’t open until Memorial Day. But there were still lots of other places to check out.
Mostly Bear Lake Road, which is a corridor with some hiking trails and other points of interest. I wasn’t feeling all that great so we decided to pass on some of the longer hikes. But we still made a stop at Sprague Lake and Bear Lake.
Sprague Lake was a smaller body of water but the picture opportunities here were incredible. Erika and I walked around the lake and only made it about a third of the way before we sat down and took everything in. After some time, we took a look to our right and there was just a bunch of people gathered around this one spot a few hundred feet down the path.
To our suprise there was a moose just hanging out in the water, eating some grass. We made our way over there and took some pictures. Making sure to keep our distance. You have to be careful with the moose. They can be quite tempermental.
After that we took a drive up the mountain towards Bear Lake and did the hike around there. At that altitude there was still alot of snow on the ground. I would say over half the walk around the lake was through snow. But it was still beautiful. I am excited to see this place when I come back in the summer.
From there we headed back to Denver to stay by my sister’s place. Erika still had a few more days before she left to go back to Wisconsin. A successful trip!