Rocky Mountain National Park

Written By Jason, Alex, and Jessica     

Photos by Charlie and Genaro

    For our first Outdoor Education trip, we visited Rocky Mountain National Park.  Rocky Mountain Park is located in the mountains west of Loveland, Colorado.

    Our first stop was the top of Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park.  As you can see from the snow this area is about 14,000 feet above sea level and even cold during the summer.  We were here in September and there was snow on the ground.

    After our long bus ride from Platteville to the top of Trail Ridge, we took a hike in the snow.  Our hike was on a trail in the fragile ecozone known as tundra.  The tundra is found above tree line (no trees grow above tree line) and the plants are very small and take a long time to grow.

    Next, we rode down the from the top of the mountains in our comfortable charter busses.  Then we entered the next ecozone known as the deciduous forest.  We stopped near an open meadow and stream.  We hiked around, ate lunch, and performed science activities in the stream.  While we were in the meadow a storm came down the valley and rained on us. 

   Finally, we had to hike 3 miles to our busses.  We hiked to a lake and saw several waterfalls, a beaver dam, and a few small animals like chipmunks.  We were tired when we finished the hike.  Then we rode down the mountain to the town of Estes Park and ate at McDonald's, Taco Bell, and KFC.

Here are some places that we enjoyed, we hope you like them too.

Beaver Dam	Rain in the Valley	Water Fall	Trail Ridge Road

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