1 May – Rocky Mountains

We awoke to the pleasant sounds of silence that you’d expect in a National Park in the early season with nearly nobody around….and also awoke to the fact that it was a mere -2 (inside the RV) due to the elevation of 8150ft (for our Tassie friends that is about twice the height of Mt Wellington).  So we shattered the silence with the sound of our generator to get the heating going.  The heating works off the “house” batteries and they were low due to being used overnight for lighting etc (in National Parks you can only run generators at certain times etc). We noted last night that there were a couple of sites with tents….bbrrrrrr…. they must have been cold during the night.

Whilst Ros waited for the inside temperature to reach a suitable level before emerging from under the covers, Steve went out to get some stunning early morning photos of the Rocky Mountains, just behind the RV.

We had breaky and set off for a hike to Cub Lake, which is about a 4hr walk (no kickboxing work out needed today J).  Along the way we saw more elk in the fields and more stunning scenery. 

We passed a Parks worker (on horseback) leading some pack mules, carrying gravel for work team who were fixing up sections of the track….really cool to see this.  We eventually got to Cub Lake.  It was quite pretty, although a lot of trees & vegetation has been lost in a fire during last year.  

We continued on the round trip circuit and found that the track was becoming harder to follow and identify, as we were climbing higher into the snow line and the track was covered with snow.  We persevered and got ourselves down to the lower level of the track with no problems.  We past another group of track workers who were clearing trees from another side track.  They had pack llamas with them, quite unusual to see.  The llamas were just lying there quite contently whilst the guys cut down trees using an old fashioned cross-cut hand saw (2x person type).

On the way back to the RV we saw a male Elk by himself in a field.

After walking for about 4hrs, we were quite happy to get the boots off and have a late lunch.  We then drove back into to Estes Park parked up in Spruces RV park for the night and to sit down, rest & plan tomorrow’s adventures J, Steve has decided that there is definitely no kickboxing training tonight LOL.