Rocky Mountain

Rocky Mountain is where we decided to visit all 61 parks. Should be an amazing experience as we travel across the US visiting these beautiful places.

Park #1 Visited 10/16/19

From Wikipedia – Bisected north to south by the Continental Divide, this portion of the Rockies has ecosystems varying from over 150 riparian lakes to montane and subalpine forests to treeless alpine tundra. Wildlife including mule deer, bighorn sheep, black bears, and cougars inhabit its igneous mountains and glacial valleys. Longs Peak, a classic Colorado fourteener, and the scenic Bear Lake are popular destinations, as well as the historic Trail Ridge Road, which reaches an elevation of more than 12,000 feet.

Established: 1/26/1915
Annual Visitors: 4,590,493
Size: 265,807 acres

Wild Elk on property – shot from our motel room balcony!

What a great first day!
Flew to Denver, rented an SUV, stopped at a local diner for brunch along the 70 mile drive to Estes Park, the gateway to The Rocky Mountain National Forest. Stopped at the visitor’s center for advice and maps and then drove to the closest entrance to buy our several day pass…two more years and we can get a lifetime National Parks pass!

We walked around two small lakes in the park, about 3/4 mile loops each. Found the trailhead for our more ambitious hikes tomorrow. We will pack a lunch.

We saw elk along the way but there were herds far out in the fields. We are hoping for closer encounters tomorrow. But, we checked into our hotel on a stream and the owner said she had two welcome gifts for us…1. a beer for Gary and a glass of wine for me, and, 2. she walked us out on our little balcony and there were two elk! Right on the hotel property. Awesome day.

Gary adn Elizabeth getting in a few walks around several of the lakes in Rocky Mt. National Park

October snow on some of the hiking trails in RMNP

Neighborhood wild Elk on our motel room property

We’ve had another great day of exploring! We wanted to share our fabulous hiking to two different high altitude lakes today. Hiked to 10,192 feet in elevation! (Estes Park is at 7,522 and we drove to 9,200 to start, but still high!), hiked 7.5 miles round trip in Rocky Mountain National Park. Snow, ice, waterfalls, mountains galore! In pics, if you see white (other than in the sky ; ), it’s snow or sheets of ice. Temps in mid 40’s at start (9am) and 60 degrees by 1:30pm back at trailhead. Great adventure!

We’ve seen elk each day…including a repeat performance of yesterday in the yard of our Inn. Just chillin’!

I bought a great book to record National Parks visits. We’ve been to 10-12 of them over the years but I want to do them all (61 Parks now!) And record them in our new book so… we’ll be doing alot of traveling in our upcoming senior years! Repeating the previous 10+ and many new ones.

We’ll hike and drive around a bit more tomorrow then drive back to Denver to fly home.