rocky mountain national park

Joel and I met Amelia and boyfriend in Rocky Mountain National Park a few weeks ago. We spent three days camping and hiking there. This picture was the first lake we ran into on our first hike. This trail was extremely busy, but the further you hiked the less people you encountered. Upon reaching the end of the trail, about 600 feet up, there was a nice sized lake, Emerald Lake, with a great waterfall running into it. We had lunch there and listened to the annoying brown jays which were harassing people for food. This was a great introductory hike, about two miles to Emerald Lake.

The next day the four of us went on a longer hike, about five miles to the destination lake, which was above the treeline. The last leg of this hike was intense, it went straight up for about half a mile. This is were we ran into the yellow bellied marmots sunbathing on the rocks, cute. Then there was some technical climbing, which was really fun and perfect for a non-climber like me. We ate lunch and rested at this last lake, as soon as we got there the sky started to turn grey. We hurried to get our stuff together and get below the treeline before it started pouring. As we started decending it started to hail tiny little bits and then sprinkled for about half an hour. We booked it down the next five miles and returned to camp for an awesome steak dinner. Good times at 10,000 feet!