Rocky Mountains National Park, Colorado

Rocky Mountains

My first good view of Rocky Mountain National Park was from 12000 feet in the air in the middle of a hail storm. We arrived in early September, but from the weather I would have thought it was end of December. To get to our campsite we had to drive up Trail Ridge Road on the side of the mountain, and it was not that fun. I tried to get out of the car to read a sign and look at the “views”, but I couldn't stay outside for more than a minute. It was freezing and the rain was being blown so hard it hurt. Regardless it was still pretty cool to see snow in September. We almost never get that in Vermont.

Our route is highlighted in green

Day 2 in the Rockies was all hiking because you just can't go to the Rockies and not hike. The morning of day 2 was better than most of the mornings I had spent on this trip. Throughout the past one and a half months my parents, who I love so very very much, have gotten me up at 7 in the morning to go on a hike or do math. I found it a lot easier to get up at 7 back at home because I hadn't been hiking and biking the entire day before. After not getting nearly enough sleep, getting to sleep in until 10 in the morning was the best thing that ever happened to me. My dad had already taken off. He had decided that today was going to be his day, or what my mom and I called a Billy suffer fest. My mom on the other hand was happy to sit in the sun and read her book until I woke up.  When I finally did get up we discussed what we wanted to do. 
 
We eventually decided on doing a hike.  We took the shuttle down from our campsite to the Cub Lake trailhead. We saw Cub Lake them merged on to Fern Trail to Fern Falls for a photo op.  We stopped at Fern Lake for a break, then continued up to Oddessa Lake where we got a snack.  By the way it is pronounced Oh-de-sa Lake.  I spent the whole hike trying to figure that one out.  After Oddessa we continued down to Bear Lake, and took the shuttle back to our campsite.