Wonderful, Wild, Colorado. I can’t say enough good things about this majestic state. On our 35-day, 25-state road trip last summer, Ashley and I both agreed that Rocky Mountain National Park was one of our favorite places and we can’t wait to go back! I am so excited to share photos from our trip there with you today! Before we left for our trip, I had never seen the Rocky Mountains!! Visiting Rocky Mountain National Park and seeing the Rockies in all their glory was a dream come true. The whole time during our hikes I kept looking around and not believing what I was seeing. It looked like a movie! I never knew that you could see so much majestic beauty in real life!!
The first thing we did in Rocky Mountain National Park was hike to a lake called Emerald Lake. On the way, you get to pass by 3 other lakes: Bear Lake, Nymph Lake, and Dream Lake.
Emerald Lake Hike
One of the lakes had beautiful lily pads, and there were even some yellow flowers growing out of some of them!
I LOVE the trees in colorado. They are so interesting to look at and so unique!! Maybe there’s nothing all that special about them, but we don’t have these kind of trees in South Carolina!
We also stumbled across plenty of wildflowers along the way!
One part of the trail looked like a magical forest!
More photos from the trail…
Look at the waterfall!
Another elk sighting!
After our hike of the lakes, we went another mile and a half or so to Alberta Falls!
Alberta Falls
The weather was pretty cloudy and mucky all day. We really wanted to drive up a dirt road to the top of a mountain that our friends from Denver told us about. We weren’t sure if it would stay dry or not! At the last minute, we decided to go for it. It started to rain while we were up there, but we made it successfully! We went up Old Fall River Road and back down Trail Ridge Road, which is the highest paved road in the US! The views were INCREDIBLE. We were above the tree line, so we had unhindered views of the amazing alpine tundra!
Here are some photos from my phone… It doesn’t do it justice!
Trail Ridge Road
And then some with my SLR…
Look at those clouds in the photo! We were higher than the clouds!
Our trip was in the middle of August, but some of the mountains still had snow on them since we were so high up!
We had a blast 🙂
Trail Ridge Road…
After our day in Rocky Mountain National Park, we headed to Fort Collins! We made a quick stop in Estes Park to see the famous Stanley Hotel. Sadly, I didn’t take any photos there!
Horsetooth Reservoir
We made it to Fort Collins to stay with my friend Andrew and his family. He took us to a place called Horsetooth Reservoir. Even though we missed the sunset, the view was still rewarding!
Until next time, Colorado!
