Hiking GLACIER GORGE TRAIL to SKY POND | Rocky Mountain National Park

Good morning from Rocky Mountain National Park. Something that we wanted to share with all of you that we did not know ourselves. You have to have a permit now simply to enter the park. This does not include the park pass that we bought. It's an actual permit you have to obtain online up to two days before. The permits go start from 6 a.m until 5 p.m every day of the week. To get around this issue we decided we would enter before 6 a.m. Welcome to a very busy Rocky Mountain National Park. You might be wondering why we are walking down the road and not on a trail. We're on the Glacier Gorge Trail. We're taking this to Sky Pond. However our hike started about a half mile up the road because the Glacier Gorge Trailhead parking lot was full, packed at 5 30 this morning. So we hiked down a bit. Hiking down wasn't a problem. It's the hike back up after our 10 mile hike that'll be lots of fun. We are starting at about 9,300 feet. I believe there's about 2,500 feet of gain. This is going to be our first hike at elevation. I'm already breathing just a little hard. Be a good test. As always we are slightly prepared. So in my backpack we each have another coat, shorts. I've got a hat. I've got a different hat in my bag. Just wasn't really quite sure what to prepare for so we took what we could and hope for the best. We've made it to Alberta Falls and most of the trails that we go on have very clear indications of where the trail is. Got your trail markers. I haven't seen any since we've been up here. We're not lost we just don't know where the trail is. The only reason we got back on the main trail was because we happened to spot some people's heads. We were not in the right place. Although we're only about a mile in, this is a fun little trail. It's a gradual incline. We are going up for sure. Nothing too crazy yet. Beautiful waterfalls. Just the sounds and big old chipmunks that kind of want to be your friend but if you get too close they'll run away. After we leave this hike can we go get a big iced coffee? Oh yeah. Whenever we're on these trails and we pass logs that were clearly cut with the chainsaw you have to realize that somebody hiked up here three miles, worked, cut up trees, and then hiked back down with the chainsaw. National Park Services, you guys are hard workers. No way. Whoa that was nasty. Although this is amazingly beautiful apparently it's not sky pond. We don't know what that lake is called. They should call it keep going or not yet. Just kidding you know anything like that. After the most beautiful picnics we're now going to make our way back and first that means going down the waterfall. So we wanted to do a practice hike which is what this hike is for a much more challenging and longer hike later in the week. We weren't sure about how we would react to higher elevation and hiking in that elevation. We are at almost at 11,000 feet and we feel fine. I feel zero sickness, no out of breath really, more than just regular hiking so pretty happy about that. Amber's chasing a critter. I lack a lot of knowledge when it comes to creatures and animals in the west. No idea what that was. I don't know. I don't even know what a marmot is. Since Glacier Gorge trailhead parking lot was full we parked at Bear Lake and we weren't quite sure if there was a trail to get to Glacier Gorge because somebody had ripped out that part of the map at Bear Lake. Come to find out this morning we did not have to take this road. There was a trail connecting the one parking lot we parked in to the one we walked to and here's the road we walked down this morning. We walked for six hours and seven minutes 9.78 miles. Not a hundred percent accurate. We did stop for lunch and I stopped it and didn't start it on time. Do I look that dirty? Am I am I sweating? Am I dirty?