Bear Lake Road

We hit the road early this morning (7:00) because Bear Lake Road is closed to private cars from 9 until 4 every day for the next couple of years. They're doing major road repairs/construction. Since we're camping on the west side of the park, it took us about an hour and a half to make it to Bear Lake. We found out that early mornings are the best time to see wildlife! On our drive through the park we saw a couple of moose, several deer (including a couple of babies, which Big Sister loved!) and a lone elk.
There were several spots we wanted to hike to off of Bear Lake. First, we went up to Nymph Lake, which was beautiful with lots of lilly pads. We continued up the trail to Dream Lake, and the view was definitely worth the hike. We came back down the trail to check out Bear Lake, and then we hiked on to Alberta Falls. On the way back to the car, Big Sister decided to walk; she ended up walking the entire mile back to the trail head.
We hiked about 4 miles total today. Hiking at a high elevation is hard work, and it's even harder with a little one on your back! We drove by Sprague Lake on our way out of the park, and decided to go into Estes Park for a late lunch before we headed back towards Grand Lake.

Big Sister has been taking such good care of her little brother! She's always doing something sweet (holding his hand, singing to him, explaining things to him) to help make is journey a little easier. She's such a great big sister!!

Tomorrow we're headed to Steamboat Springs. It's less than a 3 hour drive and will help break up our trek into Salt Lake.