Day 4: Rocky Mountain National Park

This morning is our first glimpse of the Rockies in daylight.  We packed up camp and headed to Rocky Mountain National Park along Hwy 119.  The scenery is breathtaking.  We stopped at a grocery store in Nederland.  Just down from the grocery store, Hunter spotted a mining museum with a Bucyrus 50-B steam shovel outside.  Twenty-five Bucyrus Model 50-B steam shovels were sent to the Panama Canal to build bridges, roads, and drains and remove the huge quantities of soil and rock cut from the canal bed.  All the shovels but one were scrapped at Panama.  The survivor was shipped back to California and then brought to Denver.  In the early 1950s it was transported to Rollinsville by Roy and Russell Durand, who operated it at the Lump Gulch Placer, until 1978. This steam shovel is the last operational Bucyrus Model 50-B.

From Nederland, we headed north on the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway to Estes Park.  We have been hearing about the wildfires in Fort Collins, and we are amazed at the number of dead pine trees.  It looks like almost half of all the forests are dead, we assume from pine beetles.  It is remarkable that there aren't more fires.

We arrive in Estes Park around lunchtime and decide to have a pizza at Cheesy Lees.  It was just outside the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park and off the busy main streets of Estes Park.  After lunch, we headed on into the park to try to get a campsite for the night.  On the way to the park entrance, we saw the destruction of a fire that burned 22 houses a day earlier.  Luckily, it was quickly extinguished before it spread to the park or surrounding mountains.

We stopped at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center to find out if there were available campsites, and the ranger suggested we stay at the Moraine Park Campground, which was only about two miles from the entrance.  We found a site, pitched our tent, and decided to drive up to Alpine Visitor Center.  The kids are hoping to see some snow.  Along the way, Connor asked us if we had a carrot.  We were a little puzzled and asked why he needed a carrot.  He said he wanted to build a snowman.

We drove up along Old Fall River Road.  This is a one-way, uphill gravel road that winds up to the Alpine Visitor Center.  It is a beautiful but nerve-racking 11-mile drive.  There are no guardrails and steep drop-offs.

We arrived at the visitor center and took in the views for a few minutes.  There were a couple of small patches of snow but not what we'd expected.  Apparently the heat wave has not spared the highest elevations, as it was about 70 degrees here at almost 12,000 feet.  The treeline is about 11,500 feet, so this visitor center sits on the tundra.  The wind is harsh.  We could only imagine winter conditions at this elevation.  There were pictures in the visitor center of snow up to the roof. 

Alpine Visitor Center is in the background

We drove back down along Trail Ridge Road.  This is the highest paved road in the US, reaching 12,183 feet in elevation.  We saw our first elk along this road.  They were lying in a field soaking up the sunshine.

When we got back down, we got to have our first Wise backpacker meals.  There is a fire ban, so we couldn't use charcoal to cook.  Michael and Hunter fired up the Jetboil to boil some water for the backpacker meals.  They were actually quite tasty.






After eating, we drove into Estes Park to have some ice cream for dessert.  While we were in town, we planned to take showers.  There was no running water at all in Golden Gate Canyon, so we haven't showered since the Holiday Inn in Topeka.  The campgrounds in Rocky Mountain National Park have vault toilets and a water spigot for washing dishes but no sinks or showers.  We drove over to the laundry that has public showers, but they closed about 30 minutes before we arrived.  Another night of no showering!

Bear Lake

Bear Lake Road is closed during the day due to construction, so we thought we'd drive over to Bear Lake.  The sun doesn't set out here until about 9:30 MDT, or 10:30 CDT, so we had plenty of time to take the half mile hike around the lake.  Julie had to walk the entire way by herself.  I think she was just happy to be out of the carseat.  The water is like a mirror, reflecting the mountain peaks surrounding the lake.  It is gorgeous!















The campground has fine, black dust around the campsites, so our feet and legs were nasty.  It has cooled down outside enough that I'm wearing a sweatshirt, and the water from the spigot is like snow runoff.  We decided we had to clean up a little before climbing into our sleeping bags, so we boiled more water with the Jetboil and mixed it with the cold water from the spigot to wash our feet.  We have all washed our feet in this one dish tub full of water, and it is disgustingly black.  We happen to notice Michael rinsing Julie's toothbrush in it.  In his defense, it is dark by now, and possibly he couldn't tell how nasty the water was.  I'm not sure how he missed the fact that we all just washed our feet.  Anyway, we boil more water to clean her toothbrush.  This Jetboil is coming in very handy.

I think tonight is the first night that everyone has been awake when we got into the tent.  The kids all talk a while and finally settle down to sleep.  The moon is almost full, so we couldn't see the stars very well when we went to bed.  Michael got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and said he'd never seen the Milky Way so clearly.  Hunter and I were mad that he didn't wake us up, but there's a lot of dark sky area to go.