Maybe you remember the campout I had with my girls last year in July. It was a ton of fun, but one of the funnest parts for my girls was that right next to our camp were 2 girls the same age as Kailyn and Jordan. I thought it would be awesome to have an even bigger campout this year inviting several others who have daughters, hoping at least someone would come. So, we reserved a group site at a campground in Rocky Mountain National Park and planned for a 3 day 2 night camping trip. For the first day, we didn't need a group site as only 2 dads with 3 daughters were there. We reserved the group site for the second night. It was a success. We had about 30-35 people there with several others who had wanted and promised to do everything they can to make it next year. With such a great turnout, I think I'll try to make it a tradition. After all, there's already a Father and Son campout, right?
Day 1
On the way up the canyon, I decided to stop at a couple of geocaching spots I had found before the campout. We found 2 out of 3. Here the girls are finding one of the treasures.
When we got to the campground, Kailyn informed me that the dads were not allowed to help set up the tent. Kailyn was confident in her abilities. They did quite a bit and only needed a little help with the heavier/harder things (lifting the poles once they were in the right spot and staking down the tent in the hard dirt).
After setting up the tent, we went for a hike.
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| The view from the campground. Beautiful! |
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| We met a few elk along the trail. |
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| Nymph Lake at the lake |
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| Nymph Lake from above. Jordan pointing to where we were in the previous picture. |
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| Just above Nymph Lake we ran into some snow. It was fairly packed for about 1/2 of the rest of the hike from this point on. |
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| Dream Lake |
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| What do you see? Jordan thought this looked like a stingray (from right to left). Kailyn thought it looked like a dragon (from left to right) |
Next are 4 pictures of Emerald Lake. It was gorgeous.
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| More snowpack |
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| An elk on the way home |
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| The campground view we had to endure. |
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| Jordan letting me know the hobo dinners were good. |
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| Count Chocula quite pleased with her S'more. |
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| We were able to listen to a lecture on Predators of the Rocky Mountains. It was actually a little dry--not too engaging. Oh, well. |
Day 2:
We spent the day fishing, hiking, and making lunch. As we were finishing cleaning up lunch, our friends began to show up. The rest of the day was spent helping set up tents, hiking with our friends, having dinner, eating some more S'mores, and then going to bed.
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| This guy was wandering through our campsite. I couldn't get the camera out until he had wandered into the neighbor's campsite. They were from Quebec. |
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| Ready to hike and fish. We started at Bear Lake and hiked down this time. |
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| A beautiful cast |
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| Removing some moss from the spinner. |
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| Kailyn dropped her water bottle from a rock. It went into the water. She was leaning over to try to get it out and fell into the lake. |
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| Beautiful Sprague Lake, just off the road. |
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| Kailyn made this beautiful creation with grass. |
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| When we got back to our campground, there were 5 bull elk ready to greet us. |
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| Some of the tents as others arrived. |
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| Ava enjoyed her S'more very much. She rode up with some friends and arrived just as we were finishing dinner. |
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| Jordan chillin' with one of her friends. |
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| Anna, Kailyn, and Melanie were inseperable. |
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| Ava fell asleep on the way up. She was quite grumpy at first but returned to her normal happy self. |
Day 3:
We started with breakfast of instant oatmeal and then went to check on everyone else. Once everyone was ready, we walked to the shuttle parking lot (about 1/2 - 3/4 mile away) and road the shuttle to Bear Lake. From there, we hiked to Alberta Falls and then down to Glacier Gorge. We got back to our campsite just in time to take down the tent and clean up our site about 10 minutes late for checkout time.
On the way home, we stopped at a fast food restaurant for lunch. We did the same thing last year and felt it needed to be a tradition. Once we arrived home, we quickly unloaded and vacuumed the car and then headed up to Wyoming for my cousin's daughter's baptism. I didn't get any pictures of that. Oops. We had a ton of fun, though. We're glad we did the campout this year and plan on making it a yearly event.
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| The temp only dropped to about 47 this time. The kids all slept all night without waking me up. |
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| Kailyn looking refreshed. |
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| Yeah. You're one to talk, Kailyn. |
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| Jordan just sleeping away. |
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| Cute! Just drinking a little cran-grape juice. |
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| Remnants of the donut she devoured. |
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| Campground view from a different angle. |
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| The shuttle bus ride to Bear Lake. |
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| Jordan loved the shuttle. She would skip out on other activities (like fishing) just so she could ride the bus again. |
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| Some of the ladies on the trail to Alberta Falls. |
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| And now we're at the falls. This is about 1/2 of the group (the rest were still hiking on the trail). |
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| Dad with 3 daughters. Good times! |
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| Anna and Kailyn |
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| Kailyn remedying the bunny ears issue |
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| Some pictures of the falls at the top. |
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| The inseparable trio again |
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| Proving we really did make it to the falls. Bunny ears everywhere. |
