Gem Lake Hike, RMNP

 Gem Lake Hiking Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park, is a great trail for kids with a bit of hiking experience. Lilia and Alex were 6 & 9 at the time when they hiked this. They did relatively well. Round trip it was over 3 miles. The key is to pack more food than you think you'll need.
Not long after we started on the trail Dave spotted a deer watching us through the trees.

Gem Lake

 The chipmunks are super friendly from so many hikers. As we sat under a tree eating lunch, this little guy came very close looking for crumbs. Dave didn't have anything in his hand, but stuck his hand out so I could snap a photo.

 One of the major land marks fairly close to the top is Paul Bunyon's foot. I'm not sure how this rock got to have a hole in it, be a boot shape, or even lean like this, but it is certainly a spot to stop and take a photo. I love how the kids pretended they were being stepped on. I did not prompt them.

Camping in Rocky Mountain National Park

Bull Elk

We pulled into our campsite and got our tent set up, and a fire going. After dinner and smores, we went for a drive along the Trail Ridge Road. NOTE: When you see other drivers pulled over, you should pull over too. We saw a line of cars so we pulled over not knowing what we would see. It was a bull elk! He was just munching along on the grasses while tourist after tourist snapped his picture.
I asked the kids to stand in the picture. They had the biggest smile on their faces, knowing I was taking a shot of the elk's butt!

As we were driving back to our camp site for the night the sun was setting behind us. The way the sun lit shadows on the mountains reminded me of a painting!

The sky was firey as the sun sank lower in the sky.

 The next morning we were pretty exhausted from a big hike the day before. We found a small lake that had a flat loop. It had beautiful views of the mountains.

Here's our campground! Aspenglen. I would highly recommend coming here, and we would certainly go back. The sites were a decent size, equipped with large bear boxes. The bathrooms were really new and clean, although there are no showers.
We set up our tent and got a fire going. We brought a cast iron skillet with us to cook some chicken over the open flames. We learned this technique from camping with the Ku's in the spring.

The kids are relaxing by the fire.

Snow along the Trail Ridge Road. (date: June 20th)

Back on the Trail Ridge Road we stopped at the top look out area. Over the edge we saw several marmots. They are super friendly and used to people.

 We saw more elk along the top of the road. It was a luck night to see three elk all together!