August 21, 2022 Rocky Mountain National Park

 

August 21, 2022 RMNP

MEOWT!  MEOWT!  My humans are up early!  MEOWT!  NO!  They are leaving!  MEOWT!

Another chilly night, dipping into the 40’s.  There is a heavy fog hanging over the lake and the skies are gray.  We were going to go on a hike, but figured it might be too muddy from yesterday’s rain.  Most people here don’t seem to pay that any attention.  But for us, we decided to tour Rocky Mountain National Park. 

I figured I would be getting a lot of walking there so I did not do my normal morning walk.  If we get there before 9 from this side of the park, we do not need a timed entry.  So we packed a lunch and left before 7:30.  Rudy so wanted to go outside, but he will have to wait.

Such an easy entry to the park, it is early and the skies are gray, you would think we would see wildlife.  The only wildlife we saw were humans.  Not a lot of folks on the road at this time.  We headed up the mountain, past the spot we stopped at before.  The clouds were thinning and the sun peaked through now and again.

We stopped at a few of the pullouts to absorb the view. At one site, Spouse spotted a giant herd of elk through his binoculars.  Once you got them through the glass, you could see them without the glasses.

 As we climb, we are now above the timberline and enter the tundra.  Vast expanses of rounded mountain tops in a close cropped tundra are breathtaking.  At the pullouts, the views are of rocky crags, some lakes, valleys and just all out beauty. 

We stop at the visitor center, which is the highest in the country, but it isn’t open yet so we followed the road along the mountain tops with the tundra, just drinking it in.  We cross the continental divide and start to descend.  The trees are back.  So many are damaged from the bark beetle.  We ultimately ended up at the Bear Lake Road… only you need a timed permit to enter.  Any more exploring on this side of the mountain would take us out and we wouldn’t be able to get back in without that stupid entry permit, so we turned around and headed for the Fall River Road.

The Fall River Road is a 9 mile one way dirt road that takes you in the back country then up to the highest visitor center.  It is a relatively easy dirt road, although I do recommend peeing before the ride as there are ruts.  It is slow moving.  

There are a few places where there is enough room to pull out to enjoy the side shows.  We stopped at Chasm Falls and took the wee hike down to the viewpoint.  A couple of artists had set up shop and were painting the falls.  

Back on the road, there were a few bicyclists.  They are hardcore as this road climbs about 3000 feet, and there is not much room to maneuver, but we saw them on the top, so they did ok.  In some places there are stunning views.  In other places, we are surrounded by pines.   A couple of the hair pin turns were so sharp, we had to back up to make the turns, but we were never uncomfortable with the road.  We stopped at one point, and Spouse glassed some bighorn sheep way at the top of the mountain.  We saw at least two, but I am sure there were more. 

We also saw a marmot on the side of the road.  I got out and talked to Molly Marmot and she just nibbled away.  I crept a little closer and she was ok with it, so I got her picture.  I gently backed away so the car that came up behind us could enjoy her.  As we pulled away, a dumbass jogger ran past us and scared Molly Marmot away.  Darn him!

As we climb, we leave the trees behind and enter the tundra for the last two miles of the climb.  Just at the end, a few rain drops started to fall.  We parked at the visitor center to check it out, then decided to do it…  The visitor center is at 11,760 feet.  The shortest hike in the park leaves from right outside and climbs to the top of the mountain. 

Let’s talk about this ‘hike’.  It is only about 600 or 700 steps…  it is straight up… in the highest of altitudes…  There are signs that say not to take this hike if there is lightening…  Hmm… it is starting to rain a bit, but we have good jackets.  It is still in the 40’s so it is pretty cold… and we decide to do it… just as hail starts pelting us.  It is small hail, so that is ok, right?  No lightening…  we climb, we huff we puff.  We have been at high altitude since we got to Colorado, so this isn’t horrible, but it is still a bit of work.  Spouse’s new hearing aids are teaching him what hail sounds like when it hits his hood!  We make it to the top, but wait… there’s more… About another 200 steps to the viewpoint… Where it is raining, so the views are not as clear… and then we hear the thunder…  that means lightening and we are the highest things on the planet!  Almost everybody else has already headed down, just about a half dozen of us nut cases up here.  One guy is standing atop some rocks taking a selfie… the lightening would get him before it gets us, right?  The skies then opened up.  Hail is pelting us as is the rain.  Going down is not much quicker than going up especially given the conditions.  By the time we got to the visitor center, we were pretty wet.  But our jackets kept us dry underneath!  We waited a bit, but the rain didn’t subside, so we went to the truck, turned on the heated seats and ate our lunch while enjoying the show.

As we headed back, the rain lightened.  The further we went, it was almost as if it hadn’t rained at all on this side of the mountain.  The road was a little wet, but no puddles were evident.  We stopped at the trailhead for the Colorado River.  Spouse sat in the truck, and I made the half mile trek to the river.  It is a dinky thing at this point.  Kind of hard to imagine the behemoth it becomes.  It was an easy hike through the woods… with thunder rumbling… but it didn’t rain, and my pants were almost dry when I got back.

Never did see a moose…

We stopped at the cute town of Grand Lake, which is right outside the park on our way home.  Lots of shops in a cute lake and mountain setting.  Not as off putting as Winter Park was to us.  This town has charm… and ice cream… sea salt caramel espresso… it was so yum!

We got back to Hannah at about 3pm… The rain started before 3:30… seems to be a trend…  We were supposed to leave tomorrow, but we know we are staying at least one more day… maybe two… because we don’t have reservations…