Rocky Mountain National Park

This would be our last national park on the trip…sadly.  We had an amazing drive up to the park, through all the well-known ski resorts in Canada including Aspen and Vail.  Driving along the Colorado River was spectacular; the road was winding along the river edge through tunnels and over mountains.  The trees are just starting to change colors and so there are whole mountains that are colored yellow.  We were a little concerned about the weather coming into this park in October since it is at least at 9,000 feet above sea level.  We were originally thinking to stay in a cabin but there were none in the park so we opted for one of the only campsites still open on the west side of the park – Timber Creek.  Since it was after the peak season than most of the campgrounds were closed and they had shut off the running water, so the campsite was only half the price that it usually was.  Well this worked out for us but it did get a little chilly at night at that altitude!  The first day we were there we just got settled and heard our first elk brays in the distance.  This is mating season for the elks so the males are braying all night and day to protect their territories.  We saw elk everywhere, including in our campsite!  The bull elk were huge!  We found out that there was a field right near our campsite that was the main stomping grounds for the elk, there were people huddled around everywhere to watch the elk, waiting for the bull elk to battle over the females.  It was really cool to see! 

We went out to see some short hikes in the area, first checking out a historical site where there used to be a resort before the area became a national park.  They had taken out most of the buildings when the park became a national park, but they did leave a small cluster of buildings for historical reasons.  We then did a 4 mile hike out crossing over the not-so-mighty Colorado River.  This is where the river is just starting out and looks more like a small creek here than the Colorado we would imagine. 

This is the beginning of the Colorado River!

The next day we tried to get up not so late to get out on the Green Mountain trail for an 8 mile hike. The hike climbed up the mountain through the forest before opening up to the meadows that stretched out into the distance.  The meadow was gorgeous and we spent some time to look at the birds and cross over the little bridge that goes over a little river running through the meadow.  The hike was somewhat strenuous but very beautiful, especially with the trees changing colors.  It started sprinkling at one point but never really rained very hard.  Thankfully this time we came equipped with our rain gear!! 

 That night we had planned on doing a nice steak dinner since we had done the grocery shopping not too long ago.  We got back not too late to start the fire for our dinner.  It started to rain a little and we realized that it may really come down so we rigged a little tent to huddle under and eat our dinner.  Elisabeth loved it!  It worked pretty well, especially right next to the fire to keep us warm while it was raining around us.  We went in the car when we started seeing lightning.  Besides the Loop Trail in Glacier this was the first rain that we had during the trip.  We ended up having a fun night anyways. 

The next day we waited for the sun to heat up enough to dry our tent before packing everything up.  We crossed the scenic road in the park that day, which happens to be one of the highest major highways in the US.  The views were amazing! 

We stopped at the Alpine Visitor Center which was over 11,000 feet.  We found out that in about 10 days they would be closing this road due to impeding snow storms.  Since this area of the park was above tree level than it was considered the alpine tundra, which makes it a very fragile ecosystem.  Surprisingly there are a number of flowers that are still able to grow at this altitude!!  Elisabeth completed her junior ranger booklet at the visitor center and became an official junior ranger of Rocky Mountain National Park!  The ranger that inaugurated her did a really nice job by doing the sermon and announcing to everyone in the visitor center that she was the parks most recent junior ranger.  Elisabeth was very proud!  Antoine congratulated her with a few gifts including a little stuffed moose and a book.  We continued on through the park but decided that we wouldn’t stay in the campground on the other side of the park due to the weather, and it was very cold at night!!  So we had lunch at Estes Park just outside the park before heading down to Denver.