Enjoying Rocky Mountain National Park.

Lava Cliffs near the top of the mountain

The Rockies.  I love the clouds

Yes, I do!

We found something we had not seen last year, lots of waterfalls.  This is Alluvail Fan.  There were people everywhere.  I was amazed that they let you climb the rocks, walk in the water.  It was great.

Elk trying to enjoy the green grass and all the people clamoring for the best shot!  I had a better one of the top Elk with his butt to me.

Paul at Alluvail Fan

 
                                                                                                                                            Another Water Fall

And now for my new hobby.  Actually it has  always been a hobby but now I am going to photograph it and share!  People watching.

This family joined our picnic area and had no idea we were even there.  They walked these kids back and forth across a log that was not off the ground!  Very fun to watch.  The little girl is holding her sandwich in her hand that is raised way up.  She never dropped it and took a bit hardly ever.

Cairn, the stacking of rocks is always fun to see, but watching this boy doing it was very fun

Just playing on the rocks next to a really fast moving steep waterfall.

Dad joining him, now that is much safer

We hiked the WindRiver trail today with Paul’s sister, Cindy who joined us for a couple of days.  She lives in Golden, CO so only about an hour drive up.  We are here for her daughters wedding reception on Sunday.  The hike didn’t have many views but a nice hike other than watching for horse droppings.  It was a very popular hike for horse tours.

Most were small groups of 3 or 4. We did pass one really large group but they were taking a lunch break

The trail was almost 6 miles long and an elevation gain of 800 feet.  I was not sure I would make it but Paul and Cindy were very kind when I had to stop to rest and empty the dirt I was kicking up into my shoes.  This was not the best maintained trail but we finished it in about 3.5 hours.

Cindy and Paul, plus a great photo of the clouds we get to see everyday.

That was Wednesday!  Thursday we went to the big city for errands, no photos!

Friday we played more tennis,  I was winning until I got too tired. So we took a drive and played after and Paul beat me handilly!  I guess I was still tired.

We took a drive south and found a really nice stream and some amazing canyons

The RV park is filling up for the weekend and town is crazy.

We always look for trails the dog can come on and that is not always easy.  Many of them are just the paths in town which are ok, but usually too crowded and definitely do not take advantage of nature.  I found one that seemed like it would work, it was about 4 miles with a 900 foot elevation gain.  That is doable unless the trailhead starts at 8100 feet!  I thought I was going to die the first 1/4 mile!  The view was beautiful and so many wild flowers

I love the wildflowers and this trail had so many.  It was  an open space area with lots of camping and primitive amenities.  To get to the trailhead we had to drive on a dirt road about 2 miles all up!

Looking down on Estes Lake and town

Duke loves to hike and makes sure to water all the plants, living and dead.  I think of it like dropping cookie crumbs so he can find his way home!  Once we got past this look out which was at about 3/4 of a mile I was starting to feel like I could do the 2 miles up to the rock and then the sky turns dark, and starts with it’s afternoon noises!  We went another 1/4 mile and decided we probably were not prepared to get caught in a thunderstorm.

Just the start of the dark skies! Behind us it was almost black!

We turned around but now I know I can do it if I take it easy at the beginning so we will try another one tomorrow.

Since it was cold and somewhat rainy and only 2 pm we decided to take a drive into the National Park.  Duke can come into the park as long as he doesn’t go on the trails.  We went into the park and took the drive up to Bear Lake.  It was a beautiful drive and very wet.  They do have a 1/2 mile trail around the lake and since it was cold we left Duke to guard the car and took a walk.  I call it a walk because it is one of those trails that everyone can do and everyone was there!  It would have made a great picnic hike though.  We don’t usually pack a lunch when we hike but this one we could have

                              Bear Lake, RMNP

Estes Park is at the base of Rocky Mountain NP and is very popular especially over the holiday weekend.  We knew this coming in.  The RV park is packed but we have lots of room around our spot and some good views of the mountains.  The weather has been beautiful and then here come the thunderstorms every afternoon.  You can tell we are not locals because when the wind and rain come we retreat inside and I watch everyone else just going about their business.  It seems cold to Paul and I so we try to bundle up and sit outside however our little propane firepit just does not provide the heat we need.

There is tennis courts right in town and a really nice path around Estes Lake so we have been getting lots of exercise without hitting the trails in the park.  We will do those after the 4th!  We do join the masses in town at the Starbucks but after finally getting my latte (about 20 minutes) we sit along the stream and enjoy!

We survived the holiday and never heard a firework.  Duke gets really spooked so we are afraid to leave him if we don’t know the area so we stayed in the RV park and never heard anything.  They had a big display over the lake but it was far enough away we missed it.

Tomorrow we hit the trails!

Reality check!  Paul is back to working and I am back to entertaining myself within walking distance of the Elks lodge.  There is a couple parks nearby, 3 Starbucks, 2 Walmarts and several fast food spots within 2 miles in several directions.  I’m having a blast.  I had Starbucks 3 days in a row, bought groceries (that fit in a backpack) dropped jeans off at an alterations shop and stopped into the Pet Express just to look around.

We met our niece and nephew,  Sarah & Eric in downtown Denver for dinner in a very up and coming neighborhood one evening.  So much fun seeing them and hanging out with young people.  Dinner was in a food coop made up of freight containers, sort of!  Excellent food, then across the street for some German beer tastings.

Saturday is our weekend just like everyone else this week.  We headed off to Golden Colorado for the Coor’s Tour.

Coor’s Brewery

Interesting place, you show up, park and then wait in line for 1 hour until your bus comes to pick you up and transport you across the parking lot.  You arrive .25 miles away from your car, enter the brewery, they take your photo, check your ID, slap a wristband on you and hand you a device for your self directed audio tour through the brewery.

It was pretty informative but you don’t see much other than displays.  Being Saturday we knew it would be slow but we thought that we would get a tour, especially because we had to wait an hour.  In the middle of the tour they give you a two ounce pour of either Coor’s or Coor’s Light and then the highlight is the end of the tour, which by watching most people they were going right to the tasting room where you get up to 3- 7 ounce glasses of 5 different beers!

Coor’s Brewery Beers

The tasting was very nice, almost like going to one of the local breweries but you didn’t have to pay.  I had no idea all these beers are produced by Coors!  That was a bonus cause I like Blue Moon,  that was one of my tastes today.

Colorado has also made theirselves known around the states as the place to get high!  So far, all the high we have seen is up the mountain at 12K elevation.  There are not pot shops anywhere,  you have to hunt for one.  We have not even smelled any.  I’ve seen more pot in Arizona at the RV resorts than I have in Colorado where it’s legal

Strip Mall Pot Shop

We did find a shop after using Yelp to find one.  Interesting, not very attractive and the people I saw going in were not my peeps.  Did we go in?  I’ll never tell.

Grand Lake is on the West side of the Rocky Mountain NP,  Estes Park about 45 miles away on the Eastern side of the park; We are in Grand Lake and Starbucks is in Estes Park.  Denise wants Starbucks because she does and it is a cold, rainy day and we have nothing else on our schedule today.  So we decide we will take another drive through the park, see if we can see anymore wildlife and get Denise a Starbucks.  That’s the benefit of not having a strick schedule!

As we are leaving the campground Paul states that we need fuel.  Fuel is back into town 3 miles or in Estes Park, 45 miles away!  How bad do we need fuel?  Well the car says we have 60 miles of fuel and the fuel light has not even come on.  Ok,  we should be able to make it so Paul thinks!  I’m thinking, the car is not that reliable in its estimate and the road through the park goes up to 12,000 feet, lots of elevation gain means extra fuel.  Paul is sure he is right and we head for Estes Park.

About the time we hit the summit, or half way our fuel range is 1 mile!  It’s raining really hard, there is lots of traffic, not a good situation.  I was sure we were going to get stranded and who knows how long it is going to take for a tow truck to get up to the summit.  The good news is we hit the summit, we can coast.  That’s just what Paul did.  The guy infront of us was coasting to, although I think it was to look for wildlife.

We descended the mountain and for 20 minutes our fuel range gauge said we have 1 mile left!  Pulling into Estes Park, traffic was terrible but we made it to the gas station.  We refueled and according to the owners manuel we had about 1.5 gallons left!

Lesson learned is this car gets really good fuel mileage and the fuel light is way more reliable than the fuel range gauge!  Lucky Paul.  He was sweating!

Today was a much better day!  No rain, sunny skies and we are off to do some four-wheeling!

Duke too!

Our campground is right at the base of the Arapahoe National Forest and there is lots of ATV trails, infact many campers bring their own ATV’s.  We rented one for a couple hours and equipped with a map that showed green and red trails and trails to stay away from, we head out and immediately I feel lost, things are not that well marked.

This is one of the really wide trails.

You can really see how bad the beetle infestation is in the forest as we traveled along.

Eagle, Top of the mountain!

What an amazing view!  Grand Lake, Grandby Lake and a valley that appears to be endless.  We enjoyed lunch on the top of the mountain and then headed out to more 4-wheeling!  Paul loved it,  Duke and I were just ok with it!  A smoother ride would have been nice,  this thing has no shocks!

Wow!

It was a beautiful ride. Lots of fun, something different, not sure I would want to do this every weekend.

We returned the ATV and headed back to the Colorado Trail for a hike down to the river.  We did this hike earlier in the week and really enjoyed it.  And Duke gets to come along.  The hike is about 2 miles wandering through the woods with a short loop at the river with a great spot to hang out.

So we are hiking along,  about 1.5 miles in,  I look ahead and see dark brown moving!  Yikes!  I’m thinking a bear cause it is really big!

Moose

She was beautiful.  In the picture you can see her baby hiding behind the downed logs.  She was beautiful.  We got to within about 20 feet away, still on the trail.  We have Duke and I am sure he is going to bark or something.  Paul did quickly put him on a leash just incase.  Duke could have cared less, he was probably wondering why we were stopped and why is mom taking so many pictures.

Mama and baby

So now our trip to the Rocky’s is complete; we saw a few deer, three long horn sheep, lots of herds of Elk, one bull up close,  a moose across the lake, a bull running through our campground and this beauty.  Amazing!

The river was pretty nice but the moose was definitely the highlight of the hike.

Duke loves to swim, apparently

We are really enjoying our time in the Rocky Mountain National Park.  Up early on Saturday to join a ranger lead hike through the Alpine area of the Park.  It was a 4 mile hike one way and then the ranger shuttled us back to our cars.

The weather here is definitely fall like and it was about 40 degrees with wind at the 12,000 foot elevation where we started the hike.  I had on 2 shirts, one of them long sleeved, a sweatshirt and my raincoat!  It was cold for the first 2 miles as we walked along the ridge.   There was also a family on the hike from Colorado and they along with the ranger were very interested in finding the critters that live in the Alpine tundra as well as the plants that are able to grow in the environment, me I was cold and wanted to get to the trees where the wind would be blocked.  It was beautiful on top of the mountain and the day was perfect so you could really see forever.  We could here Elk in the distance blowing their horns – this is the beginning of rutting season.

The hike was beautiful and then on the trail was what I thought as dog dung!  Wrong,  there are no dogs up here!  The ranger and family were very interested in the scat, the ranger even took out pictures to see who it came from!  I have no idea what they eventually determined as I continued to walk because I could see the big trees not far into the distance!

We finally made it to the protection of the trees and enjoyed a much more relaxing hike through the part of the forest I am familiar with.  The trees in this area have been brutalized by the beetle which according to the ranger is a natural occurance and happens as part of the natural cycle.  It is worse than usual because all the elements are perfect for the beetles to be destructive.

Most of the tall trees are dead

Lots of wild flowers, small but beautiful

The hike was awesome.  We probably would not have tried it alone as it would have been an 8.5 mile hike roundtrip and it was cold!  We learned more about the Rockies and a bit about Scat that I hope to forget very shortly and had a very nice morning.

Trail Ridge Road thru the Rocky Mountain National Park had many exciting moments today.

Just us and this guy

This lonely Bull was right on the trail and we got a great view of him from within 6 feet of the car.  We saw so many herds of Elk today but this one was the most exciting as he was all by himself along the Fall River Road which is a one way trail off the main road that most people do not take.  It was beautiful and worth the extra miles.

One of the large herds we saw

A necklace. I guess she is special

Another Bull watching over his herd

We got an early start and were very lucky to see a Moose at our first stop.

We had stopped to enjoy this lake and then I saw someone stopped in the road and people getting out and running.  That is an indication there is wildlife somewhere close and sure enough this guy was enjoying the lake.  Very cool, I think this is the first Moose I have actually seen in the wild and he was close enough to really see, although the binoculars gave us a much better view.  This evening on our way back into camp we saw another moose wandering right through the meadow in front of us.  He was moving pretty fast and it was getting dark so the photo is lousy!

Back to the trip through the park.  Climbing Trail Ridge Road we reached the Alpine area where the air is quite thin and it was pretty cold this am.  Paul took a short hike to say he reached 12,000 feet while I enjoyed the gift shop and the herd of Elk relaxing in the Alpine Meadow.

 Then we continued towards Estes Park.  Our next wildlife viewing was three Big Horn Sheep grazing right on the side of the road.

The horns are so big, I would think they would be uncomfortable

The temperatures are definitely dropping and we are seeing fall in the landscape everywhere.

Aspens are changing

Nature is such a wonder.  I love every opportunity we have to enjoy one of our National Parks.