Brainard Lake Hike - Part 1 of 2

We have said this many times before, but the kids are always at their best when we get them outside and doing some kind of activity, so what better than a nice Brainard Lake hike when the temperatures start to get a bit crazy in Broomfield.  The drive is a bit long but was made more entertaining by the sight of these two moose that were hanging out in a lake along the Peak to Peak highway above Nederland.  I think this was the first time the kids have seen any moose in the wild.

This picture is just off the main parking lot at Brainard Lake, though one of us didn't get the memo about not being too goofy.  It's quite beautiful up there and the route we wanted to take was to head up the mountain just to the right of Tara in the picture: Mount Meeker. 

After a lengthy hike to the trail head (because apparently they still had the back parking lots all blocked off), we finally were off on the Meeker trail.  They kids were eager, as always, to run up ahead and find any sort of bug, animal, stick...whatever..

There was still quite a bit of snow on the trail, as you can see from this picture.  In this large rock outcropping we saw some sort of big marmot/beaver looking thing.  It was probably the size of a large cat or small dog.  The kids chased after it but I don't think the furry thing was in any danger of being caught.