What started out as a pretty, sunny day in Rocky Mountain NP, quickly turned into a blizzarding snow globe situation.
But, you know us, we were determined to see this park, even though we couldn’t even see the mountains whatsoever haha. So we headed out to hike around the Bear Lake area. Luckily, the road to this area was still open for the season.
It was snowing so hard that I had to wear my ski googgles (as I call them).
Do you like how I’m wearing Cees’ pants because none of my snow clothes fit anymore with my giant belly.
It was actually really fun to snowshoe around in a snow globe, despite the crazy weather. While we were hiking around, we just realized once again how cool our country is. There is EVERYTHING here. In the last 10 months we have been in SO many different types of climates: desert, tropical, oceanic, mountain, high-sierra, tundra, arctic, marshland, rainforest…etc.
When we got back to the parking lot, the snow had really piled up and we almost couldn’t make it out of the park. The roads were so bad, so we decided to leave and come back in a few days once the storm was over.
We are so glad that we came back, because we got to come with our friend Emma! She’s pretty much a boss and can do anything. She’s climbed a lot of the peaks in the park. Someday we’ll come back in the summer or fall and hit some of of the peaks and be cool like Emma.
We hiked/trudged up the Rainbow Curve road which was closed to vehicles due to snow. These pictures are very deceiving because it looks like it was a nice calm day, but you’ll have to watch our vlog to see how insane the wind was. I don’t know if I’ve ever been colder or more wind slapped in the face.
The views were stunning, even though we were kinda weenies and couldn’t handle the cold out on the ridge for too long.
We switched gears and tried to find a more protected hike to check out. We chose the Dream Lake area, and man was it DREAMY.
It was still freezing cold, but this place was SO worth it. You’ll see in just a second what I mean…
This is a fake smile – I was dying inside. Haha.
I give you – DREAM LAKE! Amazing right?
Don’t worry – it was super solid.
As we hiked back, the sky was putting on a glorious, celestial show for us. I just wanted to run up that mountain and bask in the glowiness.
Our guide book had three pages dedicated to hikes in this park. We didn’t even know where to begin. We are glad we picked Dream Lake as one of our adventures though. I think you could probably live in this park for years and not see everything that it has to offer. We are definitely coming back in the summer or fall to see a different side of this place.
By the way, our awesome friend Emma Morley took a bunch of rad photos of us, which is so fun because we never get photos of the two of us! Check them out –
Isn’t Emma awesome?! Check out her photography site here 🙂
This was our last park before we take a break to away the arrival of the newest member of our crew! We are headed home to my mom’s house in California for warm weather, good food, a normal shower situation, and comfier beds. To be honest, being pregnant on the road has been a lot easier than I thought it would be. I’m grateful that it’s been pretty mellow so far and I’ve been able to still do everything that I normally would be doing! I’m about 32 weeks pregnant though now and it’s time to get some stability and be near the hospital just in case. I’ll write a separate blog post soon about my pregnancy journey and what it’s been like traveling full-time with my “human bean” (The Bean as we call the baby) along for the ride inside of me.
Don’t worry – we still plan on finishing all of the 59 National Parks and will hit the road again as soon as we can after the baby is born. The due date is April 28th or May 1st (they gave me two for some reason haha, I kinda think it’s all BS anyways, the baby will come when it wants to). THANK YOU everyone for following our journey and supporting us so far. You all keep us going strong. We are so excited for the many adventures to come!
I’ll go to the North Pole with you Cees! Hahaha. Also you guys should definitely come with us when we go to Rocky Mountain so we can rig that sweet highline! And other stuff obviously.
That highline is a must. That would be so fun!
Wow, Emma’s photos of the 3 of you are wonderful! You guys are so cute! What an amazing park! Glad you’re taking a break for the Bean’s arrival–good call. Best wishes for a safe delivery–I’ll keep checking back for news. Safe journeys of all kinds.