Day 5: Rocky Mountain National Park

At the end of Day 4, we had set up camp at the Glacier Basin Campground at Rocky Mountain NP. We caught the evening program, which was "Confessions of a Bad Bear". It was pretty entertaining, and educational at the same time. Did you know that bears have a sense of smell 7x that of a bloodhound? Me either... I somehow think that must be propaganda to get everyone to be paranoid about leaving out food, but maybe that's true. If so, be very careful if you're ever smuggling drugs and the police have a Drug-sniffing bear.... We arose the next morning to do a 8-10 mile hike to a number of alpine lakes leaving from the Bear Lake trailhead. Here I am at the second of the Lakes, Dream Lake.

Due to an unusually high snowpack, there was still a fair amount of snow, even on the well traveled trails. After this lake, we visited Emerald lake and then on to Lake Hiayaha. On our way to Hiayaha, we came upon this Snowshoe Hare on the trail.

We tried to get him to show us his huge white snowshoe feet, but as soon as he started moving he was gone. Once we got to Hiayaha, we were able to use the timer on the camera and finally get a picture of both of us.

After Lake Hiayaha, we made our way to Mills Lake. This was the largest of the lakes we saw, and it sits in the shadow of Long's Peak, giving a fantastic backdrop. Here's Lydia at Mills Lake.

While at Mills Lake, we were visited by a female Mallard that was VERY insistent on having her picture taken. Note that I did not crop this picture at all, and I'm only shooting with an 18-55mm Zoom. The duck was 2" from the lens.

After getting off of the trail, we made the drive up to the Alpine Visitors Center. The road to the Alpine visitors center is well above the treeline in the Tundra at over 12,000 ft of elevation. Along the way there were hundreds of Elk grazing on the Tundra.

We then returned to town to get cell phone reception to check on the status of the Ody. The shop said that she would not be ready today, but should be ready early tomorrow afternoon. We decided to head up towards the Alto-Alto section of the South Boulder creek, and are currently "Camped Out" at the Best Western in Nederville, CO. That's all for now!