Wednesday: 160 miles. Elevation tonight 7,660’ in Estes Park. Highest elevation today 12,179 !!!
Today’s journey took us through a lot of up and down and arounds…. just like everywhere in Colorado takes us! Our destination was to go through Rocky Mountain National Park on the Trail Ridge Road. Here is today’s journey. The lighter blue on the right is actually the road through the park.
This was Grand Lake, right before entering the National Park. Really a pretty setting.
And we made it! The elevation here at the entrance to the park was about 8400’.
And it wasn’t long before we started going up!
We went through a series of 5 hairpin switchback turns, across the continental divide, and we were above 10,000’ in no time! This shows several peaks that are all over 12,000’.
And as we drove along, traffic slowed to a crawl. I looked up on the bank, and there was a whole herd of elk butts!
I just kept snapping pictures, hoping I’d get the head of one eventually.
The rules of the road say no stopping, so Kenny kept creeping along with traffic, so I didn’t get any extraordinary shots.
But there were several cows and some young ones too.
Sorry- it’s not good photography etiquette to get butt shots. But that’s all I got.
We continued up, up, up, and soon we were above the tree line.
“Eleven miles of this high highway travel above treeline, the elevation near 11,500 feet where the park’s evergreen forests come to a halt. It winds across the tundra’s vastness to its high point at 12,183 feet elevation.”
This was a visitor’s center near the top. We didn’t stop here – it was really windy.
We had some good views, but surprisingly, the mountains weren’t as rugged and majestic looking as I thought they’d be. Everything is such high altitude, and we were up among the tops of the mountains.
We kept going up. We would get bunched up with other traffic occasionally due to road construction that would stop all traffic. There were several times when the drop off on my side of the car was not something I wanted to look at!
We got really high today!! My elevation app on my phone showed a +/- of 19’. This is Colorado’s highest paved road that goes through from one place to another.
The mountains were getting a little more rugged.
There was a lot of alpine tundra up here!
With the clouds (and a little bit of rain), it was hard to get some good shots.
Here was one of the traffic jams. It also gives you an idea of the terrain where this road was built.
I spied a couple of lakes off in the distance.
More tree-less landscape. There were people out there hiking…. at 12,000’! Sheesh! What did they hope to see that couldn’t be seen from the car, asked my driver?! We both get really winded with the lack of oxygen above about 8,000’, so hiking up here was NOT on our agenda!.
Ahhh – finally back down where trees can breathe! (And maybe us, too!)
We took an off shoot road that goes to Bear Lake. I read that it was a nice walk around the lake. The park actually has a Park-N-Ride to help with parking, because the parking lot can get full. See the bus? We decided to just drive there and see.
This was a nice rugged shot along the way.
We got to the Bear Lake parking lot, and there were quite a few spots. We parked, and I told Kenny that he could stay in the car if he wanted. He was not feeling good from the altitude. There wasn’t a chance that he was going to do any hiking. So I just went to see the lake, since we were here. Elevation 9,475’.
It was a nice dirt trail around the lake that even wheelchairs could do. I took just a few pictures.
And proof that I was really here. 😁
A little bit of panorama from my phone.
We saw about all that we wanted to see, since hiking was out of the question. We went and checked in to our little local hotel in Estes Park. We’re staying at Peak to Peak Motel. It is clean and comfortable, and locally owned. Our reservation is for two nights, because we have an off-road adventure scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I asked the owner if there would be a penalty if we only stayed one night, since Kenny wasn’t feeling good. I was thinking maybe we could move down to a lower elevation for our second night. Estes Park is about 7600’. If we just went 30 miles down the road to Lyons, we’d be at 5,400! He said he wouldn’t charge us for the second night if we told him now. So I went back out to the car and checked with Kenny. He decided we’d go ahead and stay here for two nights, rather than try to find a place in Lyons. He’d just rest and take it easy. OK – 2 nights it is!
After he took a nap and was feeling better, we went to find some dinner. We had pizza at Village Pizza, which was really tasty. Then we went to The Barrel – which is a tap house with something crazy like 84 taps. Kenny tried a couple of beers, and I had a really nice Riesling that comes from a winery right here in town. This was an interesting place! They have a large building, but today the bar was outside …. in what used to be a shipping container!
It had a big patio area with lots of picnic tables, a food truck, games, heaters. And then inside the building had a bunch more tables, pool tables, and another serving bar – for when they stay inside in the winter.
It was a fun place. And get this….. the bartender was from Sarasota! That was pretty funny. How is it that we keep meeting people in Colorado that are from Sarasota?!