Leadville Trip: Rocky Mountain National Park
For this leg of our vacation/race travel, we decided to stay in Rocky Mountain National Park for three nights. Specifically we camped in the town of Estes. To describe this as stunning, still doesn’t quite convey the beauty of this part of the world.
We spent our first full day here hiking. There are so many trails weaving through the picturesque mountains that it’s tough to pick a route. We chose to hike to Sprague Lake, then Bear Lake, followed by Bierstadt Lake which should have brought us down near our campsite.
I will hold my hands up and say, on record, that a small navigational error was made on my part. However, there were extenuating circumstances that I’d like to put forth. As we were about a mile from our campground, the looming black clouds that had followed us for the past 20 minutes, opened up. This might have been the greatest storm I’ve ever seen. In a rush to get back to our campground, I took us the wrong way. We took cover under a rock as the huge hailstones pummeled us. Our waterproof map offered some protection also.
So the 10 mile planned hike did turn into a 16.5 mile hike. Beautiful but slightly longer than planned on a taper week (T minus 5 days to Leadville). In the last mile we came across this Elk, taking a rest by our path, with no concerns about our presence.
