These are pictures taken the first weekend in May.  You can see all the snow still covering Longs Peak.  This is the time of year when there are lots of Elk searching for food.  Most are just starting to grow their velvet antlers. It seems kinda late this year for this annual event.  They also look rather ragged as they lose their winter coats. Most of the snow is gone from the lower elevations.  At Bear Lake, a popular place to hike and snow shoe, most of the trails are still covered with snow.  In some cases, over five feet of snow.  I stopped by Bear Lake on Sunday evening an there was no parking!  Lots of people were show shoeing or cross country skiing in the back country.  Also, lots of tourists are just stopping and walking the few hundred feet to the lake.  It can be very slippery.  If you go hiking, be sure to wear those traction things that clip to your shoes.  I witnessed lots of people falling on their bottoms trying to hike in tennis shoes and sliding out of control.  Yikes!

This is a picture of the valley directly in front of the Overlook from early May.  The days are suddenly much longer at the Overlook since the sun now makes its appearance several hours earlier in the morning.  In the winter, the sun stays behind this mountain and rises up and to the right but never appears until it reaches the far side of the mountain.  This is after 9:00 a.m. in April making the days (in terms of sunlight) much shorter. As the sun breaks above this mountain (Giant Track),it projects a golden color on the trees on Eagle Cliff Mountain.  It is truly a magical moment that only last a couple minutes.  I always encourage our guests to get up before sunrise and grab a cup of coffee and get ready for a few minutes of breathtaking color.  I hope you get this opportunity.

All of our bookings go through HomeAway/VRBO.  They handle all of the payments and billing notices.  In the past, you had to click on a "Reserve" button on any of our pages to switch between this site and the HomeAway/VRBO site.  Most of these buttons still exist.  However, I've added a "RESERVE" tab at the top of this website where you can now see our calendar and book the Overlook. This is still done through HomeAway/VRBO but it should make it much easier to see if we have openings on the dates you are considering without switching to another website.  If you have any problems with this link, please let me know.

We did have about 6" of snow last weekend but very little stayed on the ground.  The roads are clear all in and around Estes.  In fact, the road to Bear Lake is completely clear (as of now.)  Of course Trail Ridge Road is still closed.  It usually opens by Memorial Day (the end of May).  There is still plenty of snow on the mountains.  This is the perfect time to visit...no snow on the roads...only on the mountains!  We could still get snow this month.  However, if we do, it should melt relatively quickly.