We heart RMNP

We made good time to RMNP, hooray!
The weather predicted a thunderstorm in the later afternoon, which is very common, so we were planning on postponing lunch to get a hike in before the storm. We decided to hike to Ouzel falls, a gem of a trail since you go by four waterfall/cascades on the 5.4 mile roundtrip hike with an elevation gain of about 1000 ft.
We stopped briefly for a park entrance pic,

then headed to the trailhead, in the less-traveled southeast part, on a narrow dirt road.

Surprisingly for how rough the road was, the trail had quite a few people on it, and we shortly came to Copeland Falls.
Since it was spring the run-off made the waterfalls pretty spectacular. In fact, the whole hike seemed a waterfall, since the trail was usually streaming run-off as well. In fact, at one point the river almost reached the trail.

We had hiked in about a mile when rain started, and we could see the black clouds coming. It was a few hours earlier than had been predicted, and we debated whether or not to keep hiking. We had ponchos if we needed them, but in the end decided to turn back.
On the way back, I maybe second/third/etc guessed our decision countless times. On the bright side, the cloud cover made great lighting for pics of the falls and a selfie, so RD waited patiently for me to re-take them.

And we got to eat sooner. We drove into town and ate at Penelope's, a  place reccomended by a local. It was good, but maybe not the best place to go. After scarfing our elk and buffalo burgers and fries, we went to look around town. Soon a thunderous deluge of rain and hail poured from the sky, flooding the road as everyone took shelter in stores. We felt a lot better about turning back.

The rain passed, we had found t-shirts, and decided to head back into the park to try a short trail. We stopped to watch some elk and eat a caramel apple, chatting about where to try hiking.

I love aspens!

We'd been excited about the Ouzel trail, in a part of the park we hadn't visited before, so we decided to try again, driving about 40 min to the south east entrance.
The parking spot was almost deserted as we headed off at 6pm, and we knew we'd have to hustle to get back before dark. So after already hiking about 2 miles, we went RD's pace. We passed by the un-named waterfall, and came to the Calypso Cascades, which are 200 feet high. Pretty awesome!

We couldn't dally too long though. A later hike meant a lot less people though, which was great. Only a few people crossed ways with us as we made our way to the waterfall.
Ouzel Falls flooded several years ago, so the trail doesn't lead to a great view, so we bushwhacked a bit to get a better vantage point. which still wasn't so great, considering how cool the waterfall is. The cool spray felt pretty great, we had really hauled to get there in 45 min.

We spent about a half hour at the falls, and ate some gorp. The sky was already darkening, so we hurried back down the trail. With dusk coming we were maybe a little wary of bears in this part of the park, and maybe pulled out the bear spray can when we saw a huge brown shape close by behind the trees. Turns out it was a moose, which is still intimidating; when we were in the bush in AK we always heard how moose injured more people than bears. It was awesome though.

 We made it back to the car and were driving away when we saw some huge elk right by the dirt road, crossing in front of us! It was so dark by then I couldn't get a great pic, but he was right there.

We were watching the four elk wander by, when we noticed two big moose just across from them!

There was a brief stand-and-stare-off, and the elk turned away, but they all were eating as they drifted apart. Dusk is awesome for seeing wildlife! And being very close to moose is much more comfortable when I'm in a car.

We spent as long as we could watching them, then had to rush to get to our motel right before the office shut at 9, then run to Safeway to pick up some stuff for our aching bodies!