Daytrip to Rocky Mountain National Park
The Washmuths celebrated their 2 year anniversary last month! Wahoo! We always try to go on some sort of adventure to celebrate each anniversary - last year we were at the beach so this year it seemed fitting with our new location to head to the opposite - the mountains!
We wanted somewhere that was 2 hours or less of driving and wanted to do some light hiking with sightseeing - Estes Park to see Rocky Mountain National Park ended up being our destination.
So we packed up a picnic lunch and left Denver area at around 9 a.m. (late start, I know - Saturdays are tough to get up early!) heading to Estes Park.
First though, we had to hit up the Estes Park Mountain Shop to make sure we didnāt need snowshoes (weāre Floridians, still trying to grasp everything we need to function in this snow stuff!). Great prices on everything + the rental was cheap for snowshoes, even though we didnāt end up needing them because the snow was packed down enough.
We drove into the park at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center at around noon at the Trail Ridge Road had just closed for the season, so we were disappointed to miss that - thatās definitely on our list of places to go back to!
Bear Lake was our destination for a picnic and some light hiking and it didnāt disappoint!
It was a little windy, but we came prepared with tons of layers/snow gear.
My better-at-hiking better-half pushed us to go on to the Nymph Lake, so despite my bellyaching we pushed on. But I made us turn around after because the sun had already started setting!
On our way out of the park we saw tons of cars pulled over and didnāt understand what was going on until we looked over and saw a whole herd of elk just chillinā on the side of the road! It was an amazing sight to see!
After our hike we thought we deserved some beers, so we went to the Estes Park Brewery for a free tasting. Beer was tasty, but the ambiance wasnāt the mountain-lodge atmosphere we were hoping for, so we left and headed to our next stop.
But not before being stopped by our elk friends again!!!! We couldnāt believe they had followed us into town and were right by our car at the brewery! So cool!
After another elk sighting, we went to the Stanley Hotel to check it what that Stephen King was talking about in āThe Shining.ā We did a little walking tour of our own and read up on the history - it was super interesting!
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We didnāt stay for ghost tours, but weād definitely like to go back and see if we can find those two little girls from the movie (har har I know it wasnāt technically filmed there, but it was definitely similar to the one in the movie!)
The Wheel Bar had our name on it for a pre-dinner drink in downtown Estes Park. It was exactly what we were looking for - a rustic tavern that has been around since 1945 with a mean Bloody Mary!Ā
After chatting with the local bartenders and promising weād return, we walked down to the Grubsteak for some game burgers! The food was good and so were the prices, so it hit the spot. We had the elk burger (I know, morbid since we had just enjoyed watching all those elk), the trout and wild boar scotch eggs for an appetizer.
We took a quick post-dinner stroll through the lit-up downtown area to walk off dinner and get in the holiday spirit before popping in some shops and heading back home.
We spent a total of about 8 hours in town (not counting our drives there and back), but felt we got a good gist of the town and canāt wait to go back again!
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