Elk Meadow Lodge & RV Resort, Estes Park, Colorado
As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. ~ Proverbs 27:17
The Rockies are more vast and grandiose than you can possibly imagine or our pictures could ever convey. Certainly, there aren’t enough superlative vocabulary words in my repertoire to explain it. Just imagine the largest, must outstanding place you’ve ever seen, and then multiply it by about 100!
And yet, as we discussed it, Zion National Park is still our favorite. Can’t explain that one either. But Rocky Mountain National Park, is now right on its heels as a close second in the favorite National Park department.
Today ended up on our long list of God Moments.
We left home at 6:45am with today’s destination being the Bear Lake area. On the way out of our campground though, we saw people standing around and staring in the same direction, a sure sign there’s wildlife to be seen. Sure enough, there was a small herd of elk lying right in the middle of a small grassy field right at the entrance to the campground!
And the horseshoe pit? : )
It’s a good little drive through the Park to get to the Bear Lake parking lot, and as we approached, we kept seeing cars coming the other direction. We thought that a bit strange since it was so early in the morning, but assumed they’d come in early (before 6am) because they didn’t have a pass.
Either they don’t have a pass, or they’re trying to get in early.
And then we came to the parking lot, and discovered that it was completely packed full! So we turned around, like the others before us, and stopped at a small parking lot way down the hill to come up with Plan B.
They do offer a free shuttle for those who can’t find parking, but you have to find parking for that as well,
and you’re committed to their schedule. Plus it’s close quarters. Nah. Not today.
We sat on rocks here for lunch, but didn’t take a second picture.
Plan B . . . walk back up the hill, through the woods, to the parking lot and take the trail to The Loch. I wasn’t real pleased with the ‘through the woods’ trek, and when Blaine turned around and said, “I thought you liked adventure!” My response was, “Yeah, when there’s an actual trail involved, or I can see where I’m going!” But we made it, and began our hike at 8:00am to The Loch, with a short sideline stop at Alberta Falls.
That’s when we took to the woods.
It’s still in the shade, so it’s dark for pictures, but it’s quite spetacular!
And it wasn’t all that long ago!
There was soooo much beauty to behold along our hour-and-a-half, 1,000’ climb!
And The Loch? It’s a stunningly gorgeous mountain lake sitting 10,280’ above sea level and surrounded by giant rocky mountains still sporting dabs of snow in the middle of the summer.
As mentioned, it sits at about 10,000′.
The mountain peaks around it range from just under to just over 13,000′.
The water though is crystal clear!
It seemed like people walked up, and once they saw the lake surrounded by mountains,
the view rendered them immovable. : )
As we sat on a rock by the shore, admiring the mountains in front of us, I mentioned how fun it would be if you could walk over and get up-close and personal with the mountains. Shortly after that, Blaine noticed people on the other side of the lake, so we packed up, geared up, and took a narrow path around the lake.
Gnats!
Tons of them in this area!
Keep your head down, and your mouth closed!
We’re opposite where we were sitting.
And we just kept walking and climbing. About 10:15, Blaine mentioned that we had about a two-hour hike back and we’d left lunch in the Jeep. On purpose. After a brief discussion in which it was noted that this could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and that we had a bag of trail mix in Blaine’s pack and plenty of water, we continued on.
Boy, are we glad we moved on to Plan C!
Our incredible journey took us through unimaginable beauty and included all manner of white water, foliage, and the closest wildlife viewing ever!
We eventually discovered that we were on a trail that went to a place called “Sky Pond”, which we knew nothing about, since we didn’t bring a map, but we kept going.
We came around a corner and spotted a tall, gushing waterfall (later we discovered it had a name – Timberline Falls), and a bunch of snow! And the most incredible view looking back down where we’d sat by The Loch and beyond!
And that’s not even the best view we had today!
But it sounded really loud, even from here!
And there are a few more elk to be seen from here!
That’s where we were sitting!
Gazing up here and wishing we could climb into the mountains!
We had to climb a small waterfall in order to get to the main fall, so that was interesting – and fun!
But you have to do it to get to the main one.
Then we just stood there, off to the side for a few minutes, taking it all in and snapping tons of pictures, trying to capture the moment for posterity.
Once we came back down to earth, we began people watching and noticed many were climbing up even higher to get to the Sky Pond. We talked about going up there, and it was eventually determined that Blaine would go and leave me behind. The reason? The rock climb to go higher would’ve been near impossible for me, and brought out too much anxiety and terror because there was nothing to hold onto, and the footholds were practically non-existent, and what were there, were spaced too far apart for my little (as in short) legs to manage.
So he left me for about 30 minutes or so, soaking in the scenery and praising God for His wondrous gifts! Ahhhhh . . . . . breathe in deeply of the clean fresh air . . . . breathe out slowly . . . . close eyes and repeat . . . open eyes and be amazed . . . . There’s no better therapy in this world!
There he goes! See if you can follow him in the next four pictures. : ) 
With all the water rushing down and over rocks, it was definitely not a quite place to contemplate, and after Blaine’d been gone for a while, I heard something that sounded like yelling. My initial thought was that maybe it was Blaine yelling for me to look – like maybe he’d positioned himself to dangle over the water or something. So I turned to look for him, and found a couple up on a rock yelling and pointing in my direction. I had no idea what they were so worked up about, but I glanced around me, and saw . . .
. . . a marmot was sneaking up behind me!
But it wasn’t just sneaking up. It had it’s mind on thievery! It was looking for something to eat and began exploring Blaine’s pack which was sitting beside me, even putting its little paws on his water bottle and nudging the zipper with its nose! I wanted to touch it, just to see what it felt like, but I was afraid if I touched it, it might bite, so I refrained, and began speaking to it, and snapping pictures, but it continued to get more assertive, until I finally had to shoo it away with one of our hiking sticks! Unbelievable!
This happened very quickly, and since it was so unexpected, I barely had a chance to move out of his way!
I continued watching it, as it stopped to eat some green stuff, before moving on up that rock crawl I mentioned earlier. There was a young woman sitting up there, and I noticed that she picked up her large backpack and curled her arms around it in a protective gesture. I guessed the little rascal had tried to pilfer her as well.
And then Blaine made an appearance and my focus turned to him.
He’s on his way back. 
But once he returned, he regaled me with a story of the marmot before he shared about his solo adventure. Seems the girl unzipped her pack and when she did, that marmot jumped in head-first and popped back out in the blink of an eye with a snack bag, sat back on his haunches (like a bear at the zoo), ripped open the bag, and began eating! No wonder she took to protecting her bag!
Here are the pictures from Blaine’s hike, and from the beauty they encompass, I can see why he was gone for longer than we expected! Plus, the trail took him to the Lake of Glass first, and then Sky Pond, almost a mile away from where he left me.
Just in case you’re wondering, Sky Pond’s elevation is 10,900’. That’s 620’ higher than The Loch. Sure looks like more from where we’re sitting! It’s depth? An average of 14.5’, and the deepest point is nearly 24’!
once Blaine returned, I told him I wanted to go over before we left. : )
Our lunch is calling. : )
Eventually, we had to leave paradise on earth, to seek our late lunch – 1:30pm by the time we returned. That meant dinner was very late tonight, but more than worth it! Check out our hike back . . .
Bet you can guess why. : )
It was waaay too crowded here now to try to get any closer. : (
Oh. And we found a better way from the parking lot to where we left the Jeep. No exploring the wilderness. 😊
and we could see the road.
Did you notice why?
Weird! That’s never happened, and I have no idea HOW it happened!
Such an unexpected blessing from our Father today turned out to be!
We’ll take on Deer Mountain tomorrow!