Rocky Mountain National Park

This park is absolutely stunning. Neither words nor photos will evoke its grandeur, beauty and awesomeness, but I will do my best.
We awoke in the morning, warm and cozy in our sleeping bags, close to the national park. Aleksey bought some breakfast and we both made me a salad in turns. The salad was a cubed avocado, cubed apple and pear, goji berry salad topped with lemon juice dressing – YUMMY. We drove into the visitor center to get a map and a plan of what we could see of such a large park in such a short amount of time. To our benefit, the road system in this park is fantastic. One two lane road runs from one side of the national park, up through the mountains to an elevation of 12,183 ft (3,713 meters), and all the way back down trough to the other side. Off of this road, both hiking trails and roads for cars section off.
Our plan: Drive to Deer Mountain Trail and hike the 6 miles to the summit, which stands at over 10,000 feet above sea level. Next we would drive along the beautiful and windy road along the snow peaked Rocky Mountains, stopping frequently to gaze into the vast expanses offered to us at every 15 mile per hour hairpin turn.
We stuck to our plan precisely, but to our surprise, were offered so much more than expected in return. Our hike to the summit of Deer Mountain was a pleasurable one. It was Aleksey’s first summit hike and the highest one I have ever been to. It is a sustained 3 mile uphill climb that winds in zigzags up a steep hill. The views from the summit were phenomenal: of deep valleys and the impressively large Long’s Peak, standing at 14,259 ft (4,346 meters). While sitting on Deer Mountain we were initially unaware of the little, curious, and very hungry animals surveying us from under rocks mere feet from Aleksey and myself. Small chipmunks, accustomed to being fed by hordes of tourists, were interested whether we would do the same. We did not feed them, but we got some great pictures and videos. The walk down followed the same path we took up.
After the hike we jumped in the car and began our drive along the scenic black top road. It wound through hoards of white pine, pitch pine, white birch and… Other stuff =) (my knowledge base ends after those). Soon we rose past the sub-alpine region into the snow covered alpine region (above 11,400 feet of elevation) dominated by low-growing shrubs. We stopped to watch an Elk grazing and then continued on to over 12,000 feet. We stopped to observe some clouds on a nearby mountain top only to realize that those clouds were moving toward us! We sat in our car while thick white clouds spewing rain engulfed our car. It was an incredible experience.
It was now time to leave the park. As we were driving to leave, not expecting any more unique sites, we drove upon a herd of Elk grazing in an open field nearby a stream, with a backdrop of the snowcapped Rocky’s. Not only was this an incredible site in of itself, BUT the Elk were no more than 15 feet from the car. With a final picture, we got in the car and left Rocky Mountain National Park.