Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, CO

We stayed in Elk Meadow RV Park, which was conveniently located close to the park entrance.  We were very lucky with the timing of our visit, as the recent snowfall before we arrived helped with the fires in the area, however the snow had also closed the main roads in the park - fortunately when we arrived, the snow had been cleared from the Trail Ridge Road, so it was open and  we could drive thru the park!  

There was sill lots of snow to be seen on the mountains - many beautiful views in the park!

Our first day out we visited stops on the east side of the park, beautiful hikes around Sprague Lake, Bear Lake and Alberta Falls

Sprague Lake

Bear Lake

Sprague Lake

Alberta Falls

We climbed up to the top of Alpine Peak trail for an elevation of 12,000ft and beautiful views. 

The roof of Alpine visitor center has a grid of log poles on top of it to prevent it from being blown off due to the ~100mph winds they get up there!!  Cold and windy!  

We also hiked the Alpine Tundra trail.

Drove all the way to the other end of the park to Grand Lake and hiked the trail to Adams Falls.  

Color changes

Grand Lake

We also took a drive down to the Wild Basin area and hiked the trail for the Copeland Falls and Calypso Cascades.

On the way there we stopped at Lava Cliffs, Holzwarth Historic site & Lake Irene

 Wildlife at Rocky Mountain

We always love looking for and finding wildlife in the parks...  in Rocky Mountain we found lots!

Elk, lots and lots of Elk! We drove thru the Moraine Park and Horseshoe park areas in the evening and we could see/hear the bull elk bugling to the females - very cool.  We even saw Elk in and around town... playing in the Estes Park putt putt golf area?!?

Moose - We saw a bull moose one evening in Sheep Lake - while we have seen several Mama Moose and babies, this our first Bull moose to see in any park!

Lots of chipmunks... 

you are not supposed to feed them, but you can tell lots of people must, as everywhere you go they come right up to everyone to see if you have food to give them!

Birds - Several Rocky Mountain Bluebirds (such a beautiful Blue), Gray Jays (like the chipmunks they were looking for food & are sometimes call picnic robber.. as they may sneak in and grab something!), magpies and a woodpecker

Big Horn Sheep

Pika on the Tundra trailhead.  

Made me want to say “Pika Pika!” Thinking of Pikachu from the days my boys were into Pokémon.  I had to call the boys and tell them I saw a real live Pika - LOL

Yellow-bellied marmot in the rocks at Forest Canyon Overlook - you can hear them squeaking to each other - cute!

Beautiful views in the park

Estes Park is a neat town that we enjoyed walking around and visiting several of their local breweries and restaurants.  Lots of candy shops too... we found some amazing Almond brittle 

We loved our visit  to Rocky Mountain National Park.