Caverns, caves around Barren Springs Sign

 This part of the trip was talked about for many days afterwards.  We had been scouring the sides of the road for these caves.  There was no sign and we had about given up.  Finally, we just needed to stretch our legs and ended up getting lucky.  There were all sorts of tunnels for us to climb through.

 

 

 Grumpy Grandpa had to leave early to watch the Michigan basketball game against South Dakota State (against who?) so he didn't get to have as much fun as the rest of us!

Gem Lake

 

Headed up to Estes Park this weekend for a hike with the family.  We tried to do West Creek Falls Trail but by the time we got there (9:45 am) the parking area (only 10 spots or so) was full.  We had seen the sign for Lumpy Rock Trail head and Gem Lake so we headed there instead.  It was a pretty area with lumpy rocks (go figure)

 

 

and a pretty lake (small).

 

 

The trail was fairly crowded coming down but not too bad when we went up.  We had a nice lunch w/ a special 'cheezit chipmunk' (the kid's named him) who was quite aggressive in his search for food.

 While I was taking pics of him he was scrambling on my lens!  One of them was quite a porker!

 

 

 

After lunch we went climbing on the rocks behind us and had even better views.  The kids are like mountain goats and love to climb the rocks.

Hike: Gem Lake

Trails Used:  Gem Lake (Estes Park)

Distance: 4.07 miles

Difficulty: Moderate
Overall average: 1.5 mph
Overall Time: 2 hrs, 47 min
Total Ascent: 1617 ft.