Day 8 - Rocky Mountain National Park

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The weather did not cooperate for our visit to Rocky Mountain. First, on Tuesday evening when we arrived in Estes Park we went directly to Visitor Center to get a map and ask some questions. We were quickly informed that the hike we wanted to go on, had the potential for snow avalanches. Second, the weather was forecasting afternoon thunderstorms.  Our plan was to get up early and be done with our hike before the bad weather hit. Well it started raining at 5am. Daniel frequently checked the weather and saw clear weather between the hours of 9am and 3pm. So off we go to get our hike done as quickly as possible. As you drive through the park there are all these signs that say "Beware weather conditions can change quickly". Plus all of these crazies were gettingon the shuttle up to the trailhead in shorts and tennis shoes. The rangers continued to tell everyone that the trails were snow covered and the snow was about 4 feet deep. We get to the trailhead it doesn't seem too terrible and should only be about 4 miles round trip. I was freezing in the beginning, but the sun came out. It was so sunny I had to put my sunglasses on because the sun was glaring off the snow. We hiked about ten more mins and stopped to take some pictures of a waterfall. While we were stopped I noticed it had started spitting snow, but we decided to keep going. The first major site was Dream Lake and our hope was to make it all the way to Emerald Lake. We got approximately one tenth of a mile (we found this out later) from Dream Lake and it just started dumping sleet and snow on us. We made the quick decision to throw on our rain jackets and turn around. However, there were plenty of crazies in tennis shoes and jeans that kept going. But we were not going to get stuck, plus the trails were not marked very well and hard to find with all the snow.  Of course once we got back to the trailhead the sun had come back out.  And if the KOA wasn't bad enough, the wind was ridiculous last night. And made it impossible to sleep because we thought we were going to blow away.  We were up so early that we had the car packed and ready to go by 7:15.




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