Rocky Mountain National Park - Day 1

I visited Rocky Mountain National Park outside of Denver for the last 2 days in May.  We stayed at Estes Park where the Elk just wander the streets.

After entering the park, we drove to the Bear Lake trail head.  You need a special time reservation permit (ours was at 0800) to get into the valley.  

We hiked to 5 different lakes on the first day from the Bear Lake trail head. The first lake was Nymph Lake.

The second lake was Dream lake which had ice on the far end.

The last lake up the valley was Emerald lake.  The trail here became very icy as it was early in the season.

On the hillside to left in the snow patch between the mountains we saw some skiers.

Along the trail we saw lots of wildlife

Marmot

Chipmunk

Clark's Nutcracker

Dark-eyed Junco

Stellar's Jay

Cut-throat Trout

We saw several people fishing for trout above.

and this group of chipmunks looking for food behind a group of hikers taking a break

We then hiked back to Bear Lake and hiked up towards Flattop Mountain until we ran into deep snow.  Back down the trail a bit for lunch.  Can you believe it, but Sawako found some Sushi for lunch in town.

Next we hiked to was Bierstadt lake.  It was not as pretty as the other lakes as it was set in forest bowl.

Finally we hiked back to the Bear Lake trailhead and around Bear Lake which is right next to the trail head.

On the way back to Estes Park, we saw a herd of elk resting in the meadow

You want to hike in the morning as they weather often turns cloudy with rain and thunderstorms in the afternoon,  All the hiking was between 9500 and 10100 feet.  We were a bit concerned about the altitude, but we both did ok.