Travel Planning: Return to Rocky Mountain

Fingers crossed, universe willing, I will be back in the home of my soul, Rocky Mountain National Park, this fall or winter--other events depending. Even better (in some ways, though not all), this will be an ADULTS ONLY trip. That means the only limits we have are our own! We've got some tentative plans outlined, so here they are.

Stay--Part of the reason we are heading out there is because JK will be doing a guest lecture at a university in Colorado. So, part of our stay will be at least a night near the campus. After that, we will head to RMNP. The FUN (for me) part of the plan is to stay at YMCA of the Rockies. It's our favorite area of town to stay in, and I've seen the campus but not stayed there yet. I'm so excited to try it out. 

Hikes--any and all of these always depend on trail closures, road closures, weather, etc. Some are new hikes; some are favorites revisited. Although I really wanted to dig into the Grand Lake side of things, as far as trails went, many of the trails are still closed in order to let the ecosystems recover from the fires. It's going to depend on when we actually go--if it's dead of winter, some of these are going to be terrible ideas or even inaccessible. If it's fall, we can totally do it.

1. Moraine Park Loop--a starting hike, since its got very little elevation change. It'll be a nice starting hike. Technically an out and back trail, you can do it as a loop if you use the road. It's around 5 miles, and has only about 200 feet of elevation change. We can access this from YMCA of the Rockies--no car needed.
2. Sprague Lake from YMCA of the Rockies campus--again, fairly easy on the elevation gain, with only 600 ft of elevation gain. I can and do hike that in Indiana, and I've already hiked the hardest part of this trail.
3. Lake Haiyaha--this is a nice moderate option. 800 ft of elevation gain to see a real stunner of a lake. 
4. Lilly Mountain (This is in Theodore Roosevelt National Forest!)--I feel confident we could do this hike, and that it wouldn't be a stretch.  1200 feet of elevation gain and a peak elevation of 9800 ft. 
5. Twin Sisters Peak--if I am going to make a go of it on a hard stretch hike, it's this one. I really want to do it. 2500 ft. elevation gain, 7.5 miles. I would feel really confident doing it if I had more time to adjust to altitude, but since I know I won't, I want to try this, and be prepared to turn back if needed. It would be my first summit over 11,000 ft (though I know I can be as high as 12,000 without altitude sickness, given my recent tests of it)
6. Gianttrack Mountain (with possible stopping points at the earlier summits)--this one is maygbe a more moderate stretch, for distance and elevation gain (2800ft gain), though it tops out around 9500 ft for a peak elevation. That might make it easier than Twin Sisters.
7. Estes Cone--if I don't think I can do Twin Sisters, then this is my next choice. 2500 ft elevation gain and about 7 miles--I've done part of this trail before, so I feel like I might have a better shot at it. It's also just over 11,000 feet.
8. Sky Pond--this is a bucket list hike for me. 9 miles and 1700 ft of elevation gain, with a peak elevation of almost 11,000 ft. This would be an all day hike for us, starting early. 
9. Shelf Lake and Solitude Lake--my other bucket list lake hikes. 9 miles and 2200 ft of elevation gain, with a peak elevation of 11,500. This might be out of range for us on this trip.
10. A third lake bucket list hike is Chasm Lake, 9 miles, and 2500 ft of elevation gain. 
11. Ute trail--I want to hike at least part of this. I think it would be ideal for the point to point hike we want to do. 
12. Old Fall River Road--who wouldn't want to hike this when its closed to car traffic?!?

Some of these are absolutely hard hikes (for us flatlanders), so we would have to make a whole day of it, while also being aware that being above the treeline in the afternoon is generally a bad call. I also, as always, have to play my tendency towards altitude sickness by ear, and perhaps have to grudgingly acknowledge the fact that because this is a shorter trip, I won't have the amount of time I prefer to acclimate. We are also considering each parent having a day to themselves to go on a guided hike that's way more difficult, and the other parent stays with kiddos. 

We are hoping to maybe manage some big hikes by making them point to point instead of out and back, and seeing if we can utilize a local transport service for a pickup or a drop off. 

Other "to do" items are dependent on time of year. Maybe a fall or winter market; maybe a ranger program; maybe a climbing lesson.