Rocky Mountain National Park
My navigation software says you can drive from Estes Park
through almost all of RMNP to Grand Lake in about an hour and a half. Funny,
it took us from 9am to 6pm to do it. Granted, Kevin and I fished away a lot
of it, but there were great places to stop and great sites to see along the
way. Not to mention there is a pass at about 12,200 feet that we had to drag
the motorhome over.
The day ended at the Winding River RV park, an enormous park that is
horse friendly. We were way in the back meadow amid the mud from the day's
rain. Eric and Kevin took off on their bikes and returned looking pretty
nasty. This image is in the door of the washrooms right outside the showers.
There's a larger version if you click on it. What you can't see is Sarah
to the right with two washers and dryers rev'ed up waiting for the challange.
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This was taken part way up the Rockies looking back
east towards Estes Park. The meadow in the center of the image hosts the
Big Thompson River, the far end of which we had fished that morning. The
sky is starting to cloud over here, a forebearing of rain to come. |
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Well above treeline at this point, the
mountains turn to meadows and rock. The elk love it up here, grazing away
seemingly oblivious to the tourists passing by. The image below is
a full size snippet from the shrunk down image on the left. Nice rack.
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Near the summit there are patches of snow year-round.
Though the park service doesn't want you walking on the delicate tundra,
they do encourage you with plastic walkways to cross over it to enjoy the
well trompled snowpack. Shane had never seen the snow before, so we introduced
it to him here. As predicted, he went nuts running around. He was much better
aclimated to the altitude than we were. Way down the other side we crossed back over the Continental Divide, marking our return to the western US and the beginning of the journey home. There is some interesting topology happening here that allows the summit to not be on the Divide. Even with my fancy software I never really got it. |
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The day ended at the Winding River RV park, an enormous park that is
horse friendly. We were way in the back meadow amid the mud from the day's
rain. Eric and Kevin took off on their bikes and returned looking pretty
nasty. This image is in the door of the washrooms right outside the showers.
There's a larger version if you click on it. What you can't see is Sarah
to the right with two washers and dryers rev'ed up waiting for the challange.