We ventured into Rocky Mountain National Park for our first hike of the year. Our pass expired at the end of November, and we were waiting for the beginning of a month to buy a pass to make the most out of it. The pass expires at the end of the month one year after you get the pass, so by buying at the beginning of the month we get an extra month for “free”.

Rocky hasn't gotten much snow in the past several days, so we thought that the trail would be packed down since this is the most popular trail in the park. As such, we decided not to bring our snowshoes and just use crampons instead. And while that decision was okay for getting to Nymph and Dream Lake, we weren't able to make it any further and had to turn around shortly after passing across Dream Lake. But that was okay because the visibility was horrible, so there wouldn't have been much to see at Emerald Lake anyway. Besides, the best views are at Dream lake, which again, because of visibility we couldn't see much of anything.

Regardless, it was a fun snowy adventure to start off the new year.

We ventured out on Sunday for a short hike in Lory State park. We were looking for something that was just a little harder than last week, and we didn't feel like driving too far, so hiking to the top of Arthur's Rock seemed great.

The weather was in the mid 30s and forecasted to not be windy, but there were a few gusts during the hike. Other than the wind, the weather was great. Because of the exposure with the wind at the summit, we ate a quick lunch and I took a few photos before we headed back down.