Lauren, this site amazes me at the resource it is, and your willingness to help is a huge part of that. I just leaned over and read my wife your post. We are both so grateful to have all of you with first hand knowledge offering your input!
If you don't mind, instead of PM'ing you, I would like to keep our conversations on this thread so that it might be helpful to anyone else in the future.
Our tastes are almost 100% to be in the wilderness. We can find other activities almost anywhere. We would be perfectly happy to spend the entire 4 days away from other people and lost in the wilderness.
We (think) we'd like to:
- Drive Trail Ridge (I'm in agreement with your recommendation, and will come in the park from the east side).
- We have lots of hiking opportunity around home, and often go out for 4-6 hour hikes with an hour or two of steep climb. Once a year we do a hike from sunup to sundown and usually do the last few hours 50' at a time and take breaks. We ARE NOT athletic, but can get it done when motivated by an awesome experience. We have basic equipment for day trips.
-Since we're in RMNP, we would prefer our hikes be spent experiencing those things unique to the park. I'm thinking the most unique thing to us would be getting above the tree line and into an "artic" environment. Of course, we are not acclimated to elevation, so...
Let's face it, we dream of hiking a little larger than we really can. Is it possible to do 4-6 hour hikes each of the days on fairly level trails?
We also could stay as long as 6 nights if there is reason to stay that long?
Lauren, would you suggest Morraine campground as well?
