Rocky Mountain National Park

We took a day trip up to our friends, Spike and Pat Potts ranch near Grand Lake and on to Rocky Mountain National Park.This is the view from Spike and Pat's home on their ranch with Shadow Mountain Lake and the Continental Divide in the distance. Steve and I lived in this Middle Park region of Colorado in 1978-1979 and Shauna was born here.Spike and Pat are dear friends who were our mentors when we moved to Grand County, Colorado. They helped us in so many ways. We have spent many hours on their ranch over the years. Steve worked for Spike on the ranch in the summer of 1978; mowing hay, cutting firewood and just doing whatever was needed.
After a quick visit at the ranch we headed on to Rocky Mountain National Park and were greeted by this bull elk on our way up Trail Ridge Road. He was beautiful.

This marmot was hanging out at the visitor center.

The view from the top of Trail Ridge Road.

On the way back down to Grand Lake, we came upon a group of elk cows that were grazing.
And just as we were leaving the park, we spotted this moose. This is about the best photo I could get as he was in a group of trees quite a distance from the road.
At the south end of the park at the outskirts of Grand Lake we took a short hike up to Adams Falls.
We certainly enjoyed our trip to RMNP. The weather held out pretty well for us although as we were leaving the valley it began to snow at the top of Berthoud Pass!