This lovely Craftsman style home turned 100 years old this year. Owning this home is a chance of a lifetime. We don’t see these homes come on the market very often. This charming historic home has Longs Peak, Continental Divide and Lumpy Ridge views. Home has open living spaces, original Douglas Fir wood floors, two moss rock fireplaces and a huge Sun Porch just made for rocking chairs. Featuring 3 Bedrooms, two full baths, Great Room and lower level Den or Family Room. Great potential-600+SF Attic could be finished for an artist’s retreat. Take in the views from the fenced in flower garden, deck or patio. Picturesque .55 acre lot with rock outcroppings and huge Ponderosa pines. Own a piece of Estes Park history with this turn of the century beauty.
Spending time in the RMNP back country is one of life’s simple pleasures. I try to plan a couple trips per summer with my family. It allows you to enjoy places further into the park because you can spend the night and venture out on day hikes. A place we have wanted to go is Lawn Lake and Crystal Lake. The only draw back is all the tons of gear you have to haul in, especially when camping with children. Three days of food for 5 people is hard to pack for, it took two bear canisters to hold it all. My husband and I try to load our packs the heaviest and then let each of the kids carry their own clothing and snacks. We have a rule: The person with the heaviest pack gets to whine~and that’s usually my husband and he doesn’t whine.
The Big Pack
There are three individual campsites and one group site located right East of the lake in the trees. The sites are private and the trees protect you from the wind. We choose the second site so we could set up two tents and there was a large tree stump to cook on.
Filtering water at Lawn Lake
It was cold and rainy the entire weekend. We passed a lot of time in our tents waiting for the rain to stop. Some of the wildflowers were still blooming, but many were already done. We did a little exploring between rain storms and I spent the first night mostly awake after something large walked right between our tents.
New friend we met on the way to Crystal Lake
The second day my two youngest daughters and I headed up to Crystal Lake and my husband and my oldest daughter started scrambling up Mummy Mtn right behind our campsite. All of us were caught in the nasty thunderstorm that hit in the afternoon. My group turned back, but the other group was able to summit successfully. These two photos were taken 10 minutes apart, the first one we were just minutes from Crystal Lake hoping the weather would hold. Unfortunately, a nasty boomer came over the saddle of Mummy and gave us a scare.
Sweeping Views above Lawn lake
Taking Cover coming down from Crystal Lakes
Stormy Summit
This is my second time being in this area, the most attractive feature to me is the diversity of the wildflowers. We saw Indian Paintbrush in all colors of the rainbow, yellow, light green, red, orange, pink, coral, and lavender.
Pink Indian Paintbrush
We made a slideshow of our photos and our favorite part of camping-Jiffy Pop over the stove.
This is a beautiful area, I hope you can make there someday. See you on the trail!
We are reaping the rewards of a very wet Rocky Mountain Spring in Estes Park. I recently hiked to the Big Pool on the North Inlet trail leaving from Grand Lake. It was 10 miles or so round trip and the wild flowers were the best I have ever seen. The first mile or so of the trail is a jeep road because there is a private cabin along the trail. Once the trail narrows we saw fields of columbine in varying colors of rich periwinkle and light blues. On the East side I have seen clumps of columbine, but these fields were amazing. I also saw my first Calypso Orchid in a top secret location. Along the trail further in we saw red columbine. The vegetation was lush and we had to keep moving to ward off the mosquitoes. We stopped at Cascade Falls on our way to The Pool and took a break on the huge boulders and listened to the roar of the water.
Blue Columbine
Calypso Orchid
Red Columbine
Lush vegetation along the trails
Cascade Falls
I know many visitors to our area in Estes Park choose to remain on the East side of the park, but I would highly recommend exploring the trails in the West section of Rocky Mountain National Park.
There is nothing more beautiful than newly fallen snow!Nothing!! Here is the view off my deck on Monday.
Unfortunately, I had to cover floor time that morning so I couldn’t enjoy our first snow of the year.I just grabbed my camera on my way out and drove to work with my windows open and heated seat on (of course). Here are some pics from my drive. The views were terrible.
After work yesterday I had to drive by a house and saw a huge herd of elk.This guy was digging or something with his antlers and grass was flying everywhere.He finally plopped down in the hole as I drove away.The next elk I saw had rolled in mud and he was totally covered.That will surely attract the ladies.
