Ouzel Falls

So. On Father's Day, (after a productive morning of tidying up our mess in the basement and in my office) we decided we'd earned a day off. To avoid the smoke ever-present here in town (from the fire), we headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park to try out a new trail we'd read about. All told, we hiked about 6 miles (with about 950 feet of elevation change, so 950 feet up and then 950 feet back down). It was lovely and the weather was gorgeous (in the 80s (about 10-15 degrees cooler than down in Fort Collins at the same time, lol) with a nice breeze).

Here's us at the first small stop (as always, click on any of the images to view them larger):

And the younger two playing under a huge boulder:

And the Calypso Cascades:

Where we stopped for a nice little break:

It's hard to see, but we outfitted each boy with his own Camelbak (thanks, Deanna, for the suggestion!) and it was fabulous. On previous hikes, just Nathan or just Nathan and Noah carried our water supplies and snacks so we all had to gather round them whenever anything was needed. This way was so much easier and Asher and Micah loved having their own stuff. They each had water and then also tucked some bars in for snacks. Micah, as you can see, also brought some recreational reading material and actually did read a few chapters along the trail. ;) (He also brought multiplication math-wraps but didn't end up working with those, lol. No. I did not suggest either of those things.)

Anyhow. After Calypso Cascades, we reached our final destination of Ouzel Falls:

Not content with this view, lol, we scrambled closer:

(They were "dancing" in the mist from the falls. Weirdos.)

And then we headed back down the trail, stopping for a Father's Day photo:

We made it back to the van about 7:00, dusted off and loaded up. We drove back into Estes Park and found a miniature golf course for our traditional round of Father's Day golf, which was fun and went pretty well, all things considered. (Because the sun was setting, it was hard to get great pictures and I was more tired than motivated anyhow, lol.) Then, we had a late dinner at one of Nathan's favorite restaurants in Estes (delicious!) and managed to make the hour-ish drive to be home by about 11. Whew. ;)

Long day but probably our new favorite hike. Yay!