Emerald Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park

The next day, we drove over to hike Emerald Lake, a beautiful 3.6 mile round trip hike to a gorgeous mountain lake.  We arrived nice and early before all the crowds arrived.  The weather was beautiful.  Cold, but clear and sunny.  I wore pants that were long enough this time.  Hahaha.  We were surprised to find most of this trail completely covered in snow.  It was slippery hiking, but also super beautiful and fun!  
Here is a lower lake on the way to Emerald Lake.








This is another lake on the way to Emerald Lake and it was gorgeous.  The sun was starting to melt the snow enough to make it kinda slushy and fun to slide on.

We finally made it up to Emerald Lake and it is high enough elevation that it was completely frozen over with snow on it!  We sat on the rocks and watched the impressive skier that hike up the avalanche flows and then ski down them.  It was amazing to watch. This was definitely one of the most beautiful places we've hiked.  

We even made friends from Israel that come for the same conference Brian was going to attend.  It was cool to listen to them chat in Hebrew!









These little chipmunks were not bashful at all!  They must be very used to mooching food from hikers at this spot.
The hike down was super fun!  We mushed through the snow and slid our way down the mountain.  There was a steady stream of people going up, so I'm glad we got there when we did.  We loved all the snow!

We posed for some post hike pictures next to Bear Lake (I think that's the name.)  It was down by the parking lot.  
After a rest at the car, we set off to check out another hike to Alberta Falls from the same trailhead.  We thought it was a half mile easy hike.  Ends up we were wrong.  It was 2.3 miles and everyone but Brian was pretty upset about this once we realized it far into our hike.  We soldiered on out of love and the falls were pretty.  We were just pretty tired from our previous hike up the mountain.


Alberta Falls
Haley took a well earned nap on the way back!
We stopped at a small visitor center by this beautiful valley.  Years ago, this was private land and there was a resort and golf coarse here.  Its amazing how it can return to it's natural mountain prairie.  I would have never guessed it's history.


We made our way back to the Y and chilled out YMCA style.
The view in every direction at the YMCA was so pretty!  





Another epic day in the books!  Looking back, this was probably my favorite day and hike of the entire trip.  It was just gorgeous and everyone was a happy hiker!

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