Rocky Mountain National Park from a different perspective

---

We decided to go to Estes Park today, which is on the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park. The weather was promising to rain, but we are here, and it is what it is, so we decided to go anyway. We left this morning at 9 AM and a chilly 52 degrees. The fastest route to Estes Park is a road that takes you west from Winter Park and north to the west entrance of Rocky Mountain NP and exits on the eastern side of the park. We have been to this park at least three times already, seeing it from both directions. So we were not expecting to see anything we had not seen before, but were we ever wrong.

From where we are staying, it is a short 34 mile drive to the park…not just a drive, but one very beautiful drive through Granby, which is the home of the Arapaho National Recreation Area. And Granby Lake is the best part of it. The vistas along this road give a large glassy lake with a backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. My photos today do not do it justice, as the air was not bright and clear, so I did a little work on them to make them brighter. On a sunny day, this lake gives the most incredible views with a reflection of the mountains on the water.

At the gate to the park, we chatted with a park ranger. Because of our Senior Pass, we got in for free. And we chatted about the fact that the price on this pass is going up big time at the end of this month. So, if you are 62 or older and want to do the parks, get your pass now. It costs $10 and is good for a lifetime. In a few weeks, this pass will cost $80. By the way, this guy looked at Steve’s license and pronounced Kissimmee the right way and I noted that to him. He told us that he is a Floridian and is headed back to Fort Myers in October. Small world.

We proceeded on Ridge Road, a curvy drive through the park with many switchbacks moving us up to higher elevations, sometimes on the mountain side of the road and sometimes on the outside, often with no guardrails, looking down steep slopes into never, never land. Now, when I am in a plane, even a little one, I can look down and I feel pretty safe, but in a car, on a winding road with no safety net, at over 10,000 ft. well, yikes!!! I get really nervous. So I choose not to look down. We saw snow poles 15 feet tall. Perhaps that kind of snow bank would have made me feel safer. Honestly, who in the world would be up here when the snow is that deep???

As we got to the visitors center, which is close to the top of the road, the sky began to fall. It fell with a deadening blow and we found ourselves in the thick of the clouds. It was misty and the visibility dropped to about 50 feet, which wasn’t all that bad considering what it did later on in the day. We topped an elevation of 12,183 ft. and began our decent to the other side on switchback after switchback. Eventually we made it to Estes Park and we had lunch, and so did Beamer, for the park ranger gave him a bone the size of Texas, and oh how he enjoyed getting through that.

After lunch we had a discussion about how we were going to get back to the condo. The drive through Denver would take at least an hour more than going back through the park, and it would end on an 18 mile drive of switchbacks. We had no idea what the weather was like there. We made the courageous decision to drive back through the park, knowing what we were getting into and hoping it would not get any worse. This turned out to be a great decision because, even though it was now raining hard, and the visibility was very bad, we saw the park in a way we had never seen it before. We were not only going back into the clouds, but we were going above the clouds. We saw some incredible views of gray, wet, wispy clouds wrapping their arms around mountain peaks, some still adorned with the remnants of glaciers of time past. They circled, they opened up and they closed down while the mammoth hunks of stone stood steadily in place, enshrouded by these halos of rain and mist. We stopped many times to take photos. If I were Ansel Adams, and I had the right cameras and the right filters, oh, what photos they would have been. My photos don’t do justice to the wonder we witnessed this afternoon.

We made it safely to the other side of the park and just before we exited, we saw snow on the ground all around us. It was just a dusting, but it was the real thing and we missed seeing it fall to the ground. But I took photos of it as proof that it really happened. The temperature at that time was 37 degrees. Yes, it does snow at that temperature. It really does.

Tomorrow is another moving day. We will drive 540 miles to Idaho. I hope the weather is nice.

---