Memorial Day Weekend - Day 1 - A Total Bust

A friend and coworker of mine let us use her cabin up in Tabernash, CO for Memorial Day weekend. We were SOOOO excited! An inexpensive weekend for the fam up in the mountains - what more could we ask for? We got up there later on Friday night because we couldn’t leave until the kiddos got out of school. We instantly loved the awesome cabin - it’s an old ranger cabin on the first acre of a national forest.

After a good night’s sleep, we decided to head to Grand Lake so we could drive a little ways up into Rocky Mountain National Park and go on our first hike of the season - a 7 mile round trip to Lulu City, which has the remains of an old mining town. We were quite bummed to find out before we left that Trail Ridge Road from Grand Lake to Estes Park was closed temporarily due to ice melt on the road. The Ranger said the hike to Lulu City was still too snowpacked for us to make it. So, we decided to improvise our entire day, which you’ll see from the following photos was a total bust . . .

We stumbled upon this little reservoir while looking for a fishing spot for the kiddos. There’s an awesome little rustic campground next to it . . . we’ve already picked our favorite spot.

We went on a different, short hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. Princess and I got to practice our balance beam act while avoiding the mud holes.

We also saw a humonstrous herd of elk out in the meadow, right before we got to touch the tiny headwaters of the great Colorado River.

After our mini improvised adventure in Rocky Mountain National Park, we headed into Grand Lake to actually really go on our first real live 7 mile hike of the season to see Cascade Falls, which according to the Park Ranger, were spectacular at the moment because of all the snow melt. On our way to the trailhead, we pulled over to check out a couple of moose that were just hanging out having a snack. I know, the kids look thrilled.

The first couple miles of the trail are on private property, which means it was fenced off. We got to see some cool stuff like this that led to conversations about human’s effect on nature.

We got to navigate around a couple of monster mud holes on the trail where the water spilled over from the creek.

We got to see some awesome frozen samples of the falls.

We got to hike, literally, on the edge.

We got to have lunch with an awesome view of the falls.

We got to hike even higher and further to find a great view of the falls from above.

I’m no genius, but it seems like it would take a boatload of snowmelt to create that much water rushing down the mountain at once!

After this, we got to go fishing at the kids’ fishing hole in Grandby. Unfortunately, we didn’t catch any fish. We did, however, make the most of the little park and mess around running the bases on the baseball field before we headed back to the cabin for some dinner.

After dinner, we headed out back to the awesome fire pit to finish off our day with some yummy goodness knows as the s’more.

As you can see, the first day of our long weekend in the mountains was a total bust. You’ll never guess how awful Day 2 was! Be sure to check back to find out.