For the last several years, we have been out of town on the fourth of
July. However, since we were at home this year, we decided to go to the
town parade. Good thing we did, because Austin loved it! He went right
up to the front to watch everyone going by and got so excited that he
waved his arms in the air while jumping up and down. He eagerly
collected the thrown candy with great zeal and brought it to us to hold
onto for him, while exclaiming, "I'm going to win!" We weren't sure what
he thought he was winning, but we loved his enthusiasm! After awhile of
watching the parade, Austin observed the mess of streamers and other
odds and ends left behind by the floats. He turned to us and loudly
asked, "Who will clean up the mess after this party?"
Austin especially liked the line of trackers at the end of the parade.
That evening we had a BBQ dinner at Nate's aunt's house and then
watched fireworks at Rebecca's grandma's house right next to a park.
Unfortunately, we left our camera at the dinner. So, we didn't get any pictures after that point. We did have a fun
Independence Day though! We are so grateful for the freedoms we are able
to enjoy as citizens of this country, and we are stand in reverence for
the sacrifices made by so many to bring us and protect those freedoms
that we enjoy.
Friday, June 30, was our third day in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was the coldest morning of our trip, so we once again were grateful for our warm coats and jackets. We decided to go on a ranger guided hike first thing that morning at Lily Lake, since Austin had to do one of the ranger-led activities to earn his Jr. Ranger Badge. The hike took us up on Lily Ridge and then back down to the lake, which we continued around on our own. The information the ranger shared was quite interesting. She told Austin and another kid on the hike a story about how mice hide in pine cones from a Douglas Fir tree to escape a fire, but ended up getting burned while in the pine cones. Now you can see little mouse feet and tails sticking out of the pine cones of Douglas Firs.
Ranger explaining the story behind the pine cone of Douglas Fir trees
View of Lily Lake from the Ridge Trail
The riparian and montane habitats surrounding the lake were full of interesting plants and animals that we all enjoyed seeing.
Boulder Raspberry in bloom
Boulder Raspberry fruit forming
Yellow Stonecrop
Colorado Columbine
Red-Winged Blackbird
We even saw a couple muskrats swimming toward then diving under the boardwalk.
There were a lot of Tree Swallows and Violet-green Swallows flying about. I rarely see Violet-green Swallows, so it was fun to spot them. Swallows are really hard to capture a picture of since they move so fast, but Nate got a couple of the Tree Swallows that weren't too terribly blurry.
After finishing our circle around the lake, we debated some what else to try tackling that day. We ultimately decided to try hiking up Lily Mountain, which was very close to the lake. The trail was just over 2 miles long one way, and it was more of a climb than the other trails we had done since it had over a 1000 foot elevation change, but Austin did great on it. He particularly enjoyed climbing up rocks along the trail.
The final assent to the top was the most rocky part of the trail, but Austin loved it.
Mule deer right next to the trail
The view from the top of the mountain was beautiful. It was well worth the hike up!
Longs Peak from the top of Lily Mountain
The drop to the west of Lily
Mountain is pretty sheer
After getting back from our hike, we hurried to the Moraine Discovery Center where Austin got his Jr. Ranger Badge just before it closed. He enjoyed doing the activities in his booklet, and he was pretty happy with his badge.
We decided to visit the Alluvial Fan before calling it a day, so that is where we headed next. The hike to the falls here was very short. We found if we were careful we could step out onto rock and dirt islands in the middle of the rushing water here.
This brought our total hiking distance for the day to about 5.9 miles. In total, we hiked about 17 miles together during our three days in the park. Not too shabby for a trip with a six year old...However, I must admit we were pretty sick of playing "I spy with my little eye..." by the end of the week, as this turned out to be Austin's favorite thing to do as we hiked. We also played a lot of "Follow the Leader" and "20 Questions" to break up the endless "I spy" games, so we were getting a rather worn out on those as well.
We headed home on Saturday. However, we decided the main road was entirely too fast for us, so we decided to use a dirt frontage road to get home instead.
Just kidding. Actually, we made a bad choice in exits to take in order to change drivers quick in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming, and we picked one in which there was no way to get back onto the freeway in the right direction. Instead, we had to drive 5 miles on a very bumpy dirt road to the next freeway entrance. We were grateful we were not in a low riding car at the time. In any case Austin did seem to particularly enjoy this section of our trip home.
Thursday, June 29 was our second day in Rocky Mountain National Park. We decided to go back to try finishing our original plans from the previous day, so we headed back to the Bear Lake area and hiked to Emerald Lake. Before reaching the pristine Emerald Lake, this trail passes by two
other lakes: Nymph Lake and Dream Lake.
Nymph Lake
Nymph Lake from northwest side
View of Nymph Lake from an overlook above
Dream Lake appears as an elongated waterway stretching toward the nearby peaks. There are a number of wet marshy areas around it, fed by the mounds of melting snow. Not all the snow along the trail had melted while we were there, so there were some places we had to walk over the packed slick snow banks. I had to laugh when I overheard another young child asking his parents if he could sled down one of these snow banks along the side of the trail that ended in an extremely muddy and wet bog.
Dream Lake
Nymph Lake was nice, Dream Lake was beautiful, and Emerald Lake was stunning. It was also fairly crowded though; this is probably among one of the more popular hikes in the park.
Emerald Lake with Flattop Mountain behind it
It was fun to see a number of Clark's Nutcrackers flying around Emerald Lake too. There was also a marmot there looking for handouts, as well as numerous cheeky chipmunks with no fear of humans. The chipmunks around the park that we saw were crazy. They would run right up to people, under their legs as they sat on the rocks, and even eat from people's hands. We frequently had to shoo them away or chase them off our camelpaks. Obviously way too many people ignore the signs warning visitors to not feed the wildlife, which is sad since it ultimately is quite bad for the animals.
Clark's Nutcracker
Yellow-Bellied Marmot
Emerald Lake with Hallett Peak
After returning from our Emerald Lake hike, we decided to go see Alberta Falls since there was an adjacent trail heading that way. Austin enjoyed studying some of the flowers along the way.
Golden Banner
We soon reached an overlook of Glacier Creek. After that, the trail continued to follow the creek up to the falls.
Alberta Falls
We found Glacier Creek roaring through a granite chute before plunging over Alberta
Falls and continuing its cascade down the mountain slope.
Austin & Nate at the top of the falls by the granite chute the creek runs through
We hiked back down from the falls to the Glacier Gorge parking area, where we got on the shuttle and headed back to our car. From there we headed over the Sprague Lake to eat a picnic lunch and hike around the lake.
During our hike, we spotted a female Red-Naped Sapsucker pecking at some dead trees.
I found the wild blanket flower growing along this trail and in other places in the park interesting. We have some blanket flower growing in our yard, but I hadn't seen it growing wild before.
Blanket Flower
After hiking around the lake, we headed back to our cabin for dinner, but not before stopping at a nice viewing area not far from the park entrance.
