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Published: September 26th 2019
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Our morning started out cold. We had no hot water for our shower. I don’t mean it was cool, I mean ice cold water. We said something to the desk staff when we stopped by for our sort of continental breakfast. Apparently it was out in the whole building and they were working on it. We got juice and coffee and went back to our room to enjoy cinnamon roles that Donald had purchased from the bakery down the road earlier this morning. The sort of continental breakfast had basically cereal, toast and muffins. Not very hardy.
We headed on into Rocky Mountain National Park via the north entrance. We made a quick stop at the welcome center and moved along. We opted for that entrance because a couple of hotel guests told us they went to bear lake yesterday utilizing the shuttle and were sitting in traffic for an hour and a half - both ways. They were doing road construction and painting traffic lines causing the long delays. We did not want to caught in that so we stayed away from that area.
We decided to take the Old River Road up to the top. It is
a scenic one way dirt road that is less traveled than the main road. Any road less traveled is the road I want to go on. About 1/4 of the way up is a stop at a nice waterfall. There are a few other pullouts and stops but mostly it is just a scenic drive. About 3/4 of the way up we stopped at an unmarked path and decided to just walk in the woods for a bit. Get away from the crowd. We came across a ranger cabin and noticed many foot trails in different directions from there. We took one of those and hiked a bit to a stream. We then decided to head back and was surprised to see other people around the area. I guess they had seen our car stopped so they too decided to stop and check things out for themselves.
We continued on up to the top to Alpine Visitor Center. We got a hot dog from the cafe (they had limited choices from their ‘end of season menu’) and ate while enjoying the expansive view. A marmot was just outside our window, so we had a little entertainment as well. We
left the visitor center and stopped at the Tundra Nature Trail. The wind was so strong and cold, that one could easily be blown over. We did read that gusts up there can exceed 100 mph during the winter. It wasn’t that strong yet, but not that far from it either. That trail was tough. It was uphill and above 12,000 feet elevation, so the air was extremely thin. I had a hard time breathing but persevered.
We drove on back down which make breathing easier. We did not see much wildlife stirring about but there was plenty of people. I have been to this park a few times before and each time I come the wildlife is less crowded and the people are more crowded. I bet there is a direct correlation between those.
We went back to the hotel for a little rest and then into town. We stopped for some fajitas and saw several elk resting under the trees behind the stores. We then drove by the golf course where we saw 30+ elk enjoying the green grass. The golf course w as closed , which I assume was due to the elk rut where
the elk just roam all over town. We watched them for a while and then went back into the park. We observed several herds grazing and tons of people watching. Dusk was quickly turning into night so we left the park and went back to our room.
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