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.

It started snowing on Friday evening and didn't stop until Sunday morning. That meant that we spent the day inside on Saturday and went to find some fresh powder on Sunday. We headed into Rocky Mountain National Park for our first snowshoe of the season. We decided to do a challenging hike for where we are in our fitness and hiked to The Loch, a 6-mile round trip hike with about 1,400 feet of elevation gain. Normally, this wouldn't be so bad, but the fresh snow made it a little more challenging and pushed us to our limits. But despite the pain, groaning, and complaining (mostly from Katie), we made it to a very windy alpine lake where I took a few photos and we turned around to find a calmer spot for lunch.

This was a chilly hike. Luckily the wind wasn't constantly blowing, but each gust chilled us a little more each time. By the time we stopped for lunch, we were both ready to be warmer and wearing all the clothes we brought with us. But that's all part of the adventure, being cold together just hoping for a perfect hike where you can sit on a calm frozen lake in the middle of winter wearing a tee shirt. This wasn't that hike, but you can't expect to find the perfect hike without continually trying. This year has been windy in general (causing severe avalanche conditions), so I'm not sure if we will find a peaceful winter lake this year, but that won't stop us from trying.

Even though it wasn't snowing in the park and wasn't that windy (except at the lake), the visibility was terrible. It got a little better in the afternoon, but it was a bummer that the mountain views weren't clear. Hopefully we can get a good crisp winter mountain view soon.