Today we woke up a bit later. Still, we were able to accomplish leaving by 7:20 after a breakfast of bagels. We continued on our drive up the mountain. The hike we were going on was 1 mile round trip, with an elevation gain of 260 feet. We approached the hiking trail and parked.
On the hike we saw a billion marmots, lots of flowers, and a completely flat landscape. Decently flat, but there were cool “Mushroom Rocks” that we saw. The trouble that I had was mainly popping my ears. We reached up to 12,310 ft above sea level, so that made sense.
We reached the end of 0.5 miles and climbed on some rocks. We got to look at the dome, a metal circle telling which way to each nearby national park and how many miles. We made our way back to the parking lot and started driving to our next stop.
On our way, we saw elk up close, like, 8 feet away. We also saw the Continental Divide, a river that separates the water that goes to the Mississippi from the water that goes to the Pacific.
We parked at the parking lot and walked down to a river. We played there for a while and then hiked for a bit. We came back and ate lunch for a little while. We then used the restrooms and started driving to a visitor center.
At the visitor center we used the restrooms and stamped our National Park Passports. We started driving to the tram, where we would go on a ride up and down a mountainside. We arrived at the tram and parked.
We waited in line for a while and got on the tram. I starting getting suspicious about the storm clouds. My suspicion was proven when it started sprinkling at the top. We heard thunder and lightning. At the top we fed some squirrels and got in line for the next tram.
The tram took us back down the mountainside. When we got back down we went into the parking lot and hopped back into the car. We drove to the ice cream place Munching House and ate there.
We went back to the hotel and parked. Even though it was sprinkling a bit, we still changed and went in the pool for a while. Afterwards we had a dinner of microwave Mac and cheese and then turned in for the night.
