Day 7: Rocky Mountain National Park

After a good night's sleep at Aspenglen Campground, Nate and I had a wonderful breakfast of chocolate and banana pancakes. We packed up our gear and headed out on our hike. We did a 5 mile loop that took us to nymph lake, Dream Lake, and then Emerald Lake. After we got to the first lake, a thunderstorm came through, and we stopped under some boulders to take cover. After it died down a bit, we pressed on to Emerald Lake.

It was beautiful at each of the lakes, but Emerald lake was the prettiest of the three. It was too bad it stayed overcast the rest of the day, at least from a photography standpoint.

We stuck around for a while at the lake, and then made the hike back down the mountain.

When we first started planning the trip, Nate insisted on our staying at a bed and breakfast for at least part of our time, so we decided that there was no better time to do so than the last few nights. We stayed at the Gilded Pines right outside of Estes Park. The convincing part for me was the jacuzzi, swedish showers, no TV policy, and the huge breakfasts. When we got to our room after the hike, we cleaned up, and headed into Estes Park for dinner at the Wapati Grill. Nate had pulled pork, and I had some spicy (even for me) fish tacos. It was a wonderful day, but the long uphill mountain hike wore me out. I think I set some sort of world record for instantaneously falling asleep. :)