Day 7.

Unbelievable. That's about all we can say about today. Brady and I hiked up Bible Point, a low mountain that overlooks the YMCA camp. At sunrise. He was awesome, we had some good conversation and man time, and I think may have established a tradition for us. We spent the morning in Wild Basin, a southern part of RMNP that sees a bit less traffic than the rest of the park. We hiked to Copeland Falls, which was beautiful. This was our last 'hike' of the trip, and that was alright. We all have pretty tired legs from a few days in a row of dirt! After lunch, we went up to Sprague Lake to see if the Eastside Moose was around. We parked at 3:15 pm; Emy was adamant we needed to be there by 3:00 cuz that is when someone else had seen him at the lake 2 days prior. We started out to the lake, and I went back to the van to get my fishing gear; I had just started back when Brady came tearing around the corner, saying, "Dad, come quick. The Moose!" We ran out as this big boy was starting out into the lake and proceeded to snap a ton of pics as he ate his way across the lake for an hour. The only drama was provided by a bunch of people that did not clear the way when he came out of the water looking for his usual path into the willow thickets south of the lake; it appeared as though he was getting antsy with all those people blocking his path, but eventually he calmed down and made his way through the willows and disappeared. That capped our trip, frankly. It was an amazing hour...then it was downtown for greasy burgers and hand cut fries at Penelope's, and back to the Y for mini golf and loading up the van. Planning on heading out tomorrow morning early, hoping for home later tomorrow evening. I think we all have a sense of sadness knowing it will likely be a year before we come back, but excited to have been amazed daily and even more to come back and further explore parts of RMNP/Estes Valley that we have not yet...and maybe even MORE excited to see our pups and sleep in our beds.