Rocky Mountains National Park

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Another long drive bought us to our next National Park – The Rocky Mountains. We entered via the west which is the quieter side so it was nice not to be welcomed by a mass of cars; well I say cars, more like trucks!! It was quite late on when we arrived and got our bearings, but we wanted to do something before we pitched the tent so we went for a walk in Coyote Valley and decided it would be nice to see if any wildlife surfaced at dusk so went and got our tea to eat there; this was a lovely place there was nobody else about and it felt really relaxing. In the end we saw a couple of Elk in the distance but in the end we were drove out by the tons of mosquitoes who were enjoying grazing on us, so we headed back to the car and set up camp for the night. As we were 10,000 feet up it was freeeeeezing, literally, because when we awoke the condensation had turned to ice.

An early start gave us the opportunity to get to the other side of the park via the Trail Ridge Road up to the highest paved road in North America (so we were informed). On the way however, Mary’s eagle eye spotted a Moose grazing. We stopped and watched for a while – it was great because the night before we were both saying how much we wanted to see a Moose and this park would be our last chance. It didn’t have massive antlers but it was a huge beautiful beast all the same. We continued on and not far up the road we came across some deer crossing, then to the other side of the road we saw about 5 Elk grazing by a lake. What a picturesque setting with the sun just coming up over the mountains. We stopped for some time, had a cup of tea and simply watched them go about their morning routine.

We drove on to the Tundra Communities walk near the summit of the road (12,183 ft) where we ate breaky and did a short mile walk. It was very cold up there but the view was spectacular. We stopped at a few view points on the way down and when we reached the bottom we headed to a good 6 mile walk on the Fern Lake Trail to Cub Lake; this took us through another stunning meadow, up to Cub Lake and then up an ascent to ‘The Pool’ where we ate our massive bagels in the company of some very friendly squirrels. The walk back from here was tiring, the altitude coupled with the hot sun makes it hard work.

We left the park thinking we would visit Estes Park, only to find out it was a town and not another National Park – duh! Anyway we had a little look around, figured out a campsite in the Roosevelt National Forest that was on the way to our next destination – Boulder. A relaxed afternoon with a few beers and game of cards rounded of this little trip nicely – The Rocky Mountains are magnificent and this park, with the scenery and abundance of wildlife is our favorite so far.

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Photos

Coyote Valley
through the meadow, we stopped to have tea here

Fed up....
with living out of the bot

ICE!!
We were that high that the condensation on our tent had frozen

Moose
We both really wanted to see this so we were dead chuffed

Elk
These were right next to the road

Elk
This one got scared by a car so dived in and swam the lake

Mary and Elk
This is how close you could get

Tundra Community Trail
This was fairly near the top, about 12,000ft...very cold!

On top of the world
...at least it felt like it

Cub Lake Trail
through another lovely meadow