While we enjoyed the prairie lands of Montana and Wyoming, we were ready for a change of scenery. And we certainly experienced a wonderful change in scenery as we crossed into Colorado and headed towards Estes Park. Watching the Rocky Mountains get larger as we got closer was definitely a great change of scenery. The ride up to Estes Park through Big Thompson Canyon was a WOW. The river had cut a narrow gorge over the years, and we had steep canyon walls on both sides of us as we climbed higher and higher. Estes Park itself was a delightful little town nestled amongst the surrounding mountain peaks, albeit the narrow roads proved a bit troublesome when it came to trying to make sharp left turns (but that’s another story!!!!!!!!!!). The Elk Meadow Campground where we were staying had a pretty view of the surrounding hills and mountain peaks. We had been told that elk frequently wandered through the campground, and that certainly proved to be the case during our first night there. About 10:00 at night, we started to hear weird sounds outside that we eventually realized were male/bull elk bugling as part of their annual mating ritual to attract females (of course, we can’t imagine why any female would find that weird noise to be attractive!!). As the sound of the bugling got closer, we shut off the lights and pulled up the curtains to see what was going on only to observe a large male elk slowly ambling along just a few feet from our RV. He seemed to be totally unconcerned about the fact that he was wandering through the campground full of RVs. What a great start to our Colorado adventure.
David’s brother, George, who lives in a Denver suburb, came up on Wednesday and joined us for a planned day of hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). We started with a very nice hike along a string of three lakes (Nymph, Dream and Emerald lakes) at steadily higher elevations going back up into the mountains. Due in large part to the fact that we were not yet acclimated to the high elevation in Estes Park (8,000 feet), we endured a great deal of huffing and puffing as we hiked upward past these beautiful lakes. By the time we got to the highest of the lakes, pretty Emerald Lake, we were certainly ready to spend some time sitting at the lakeside enjoying our lunch. Wonder of wonders, the return hike back down to the trailhead seems sooooooooooooo much shorter and quicker, to say nothing of easier. David and his brother then took a short hike around nearby Bear Lake while Jo snapped pictures, rested her feet and enjoyed the scenery. That evening after dinner, we all went back into RMNP to go elk watching. The elk tend to conceal themselves in wooded areas during the day and come out into the meadow lands at dusk. We positioned ourselves at the edge of one of the larger meadowlands near the Beaver Meadow entrance to the park in the hopes of seeing and hearing the elk. We were not disappointed. While we were there, several bull/male elk came out of the woods and wandered/strutted around among groups of female elk. We could hear bugling from these males scattered around the meadow and again wondered why any females would ever find those sounds to be attractive. LOL LOL LOL
The following day, we took a wild ride across RMNP from the eastern end of the park all the way to the western side. Initially, we drove up an unpaved road (Old Falls River Road) which wound its way up to the top of the mountains by way of a narrow, one-way “road” blasted out of the side of the canyon walls. The road grew to be so narrow, and the drop off so precipitous that Jo had to avert her eyes and stop looking out over the beautiful panorama of the mountain gorge in which we were traveling. We had a nice respite stopping to observe a pretty little waterfall alongside the road, before returning to our trip up through one switchback after another. Once we got to the top, at the Alpine Visitors Center, we were finally able to relax and just stand in awe of the beautiful view back down the gorge we had come up, to say nothing of the wonderful view of all of the Rocky Mountain peaks surrounding us. As we continued westward on the main road, we passed over the Continental Divide. It was interesting standing in front of a sign telling us that the creek flowing to the left would drain into the Atlanta Ocean (eventually!!) while any precipitation falling to the right of us would end up in the Pacific Ocean. We continued on down the mountains into the valley carved by the (at this point very narrow) Colorado River. We followed the only real road on the west side of RMNP down to Grand Lake, where we had a pleasant lunch looking out over the placid waters of this pretty lake. As David had driven all the way through the park on this trip so far, Jo agreed to drive at least a portion of the way back to the eastern end of the park. All went well until shortly after we had climbed back up to the vicinity of the Alpine Visitors Center just east of the center, even this main road got quite narrow, with a very precipitous drop off on the right side of the road. David thought to reassure Jo by saying that she had at least 3 or 4 feet to spare to the drop off, but Jo was not reassured!! Fortunately she was able to make it to a scenic viewpoint just up the road, at which point it was now David’s responsibility to deal with the drop-offs and switchbacks!!!!!
Later that day our friends Rick and Ann Alden from Chicago joined us at the campground. We spent the evening making plans to travel together for the next several weeks through Colorado and Utah and compared notes as to just which National Parks we all wanted to see. Boy are we excited at the prospect of visiting these parks, particularly the parks in Southern Utah. The following day, we had dinner with a couple who are friends of Rick and Ann, Joe and Delphine Casey, who have expressed an interest in joining the four of us on our planned trip to Canada and Alaska next summer. Although there wasn’t time to look at the 15 hours of video-taped programming that Joe has collected to date (LOL!!!), we did enjoy looking at his maps and discussing in broad terms what we would like to do when we get to Canada and Alaska!! That night after dinner we took Rick and Ann back out to the elk meadows in RMNP so that Ann could hear the bugling of the bull elks. This time, the elks were even closer up so that the bugling was quite loud. But it still didn’t sound very attractive LOL !!!
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