On Father’s Day my 16-year-old son Daniel and I decided to go hiking. We didn’t have a definite plan in mind on where exactly to go but ended up driving up toward Estes Park and into Rocky Mountain National Park. I had entrance reservations already reserved for a few different weekends and we were there on the right day at the right time.

Once into the park I decided that we should try exploring a new area of the park that has lesser foot traffic, which led us to the Lawn Lake Trail near the (currently closed) Fall River Entrance.

After parking we had about 7 miles of hiking uphill to Lawn Lake which sits in a bowl of the Mummy Range (14 miles round trip). I was hoping to go even further to Mummy Mountain but we found there was a bit too much snow and it was pretty cold above tree line (we weren’t prepared for winter weather conditions).

Overall it was a very enjoyable hike with terrific scenery at the end, although I have to admit the first several miles get a bit monotonous. We made a video of our hike which tells the story. We’re going to make more videos in the coming months as we continue to enjoy the outdoors and we’ll get a bit more sophisticated in our production.

The second photo is of a garter snake which was a surprise. We saw a moose near the trailhead but it quickly disappeared into the foliage, which was a bit disappointing.