Getting There

We aimed for Rocky Mountain from the Denver side, but before heading for the park, we wanted to get some green chili.  Over the years on our various adventures, we’ve been in pursuit of the world’s best breakfast.  Most days, we skip breakfast as part of our intermittent fasting, but when we have the opportunity to try a well regarded breakfast spot, we have to stop.  We had eaten at Sam’s No.3 in Denver years before and remembered it fondly, so as we approached Denver from the east, we set a course for breakfast heaven.  Our green chili breakfast burritos were so good, we ordered extra green chili to go (which was devoured at dinner that night).  The green chili is legendary, and their overall breakfast was excellent, but not quite a Top 5 for us.  Anyway, our camping reservations for the next 3 nights were in Glacier Basin Campground inside the park which we entered from Estes Park, a cute mountain town, famous for the Stanley Hotel (The Shining). 

ROMO’s East Side

All National Parks are identified by a four letter acronym, usually composed of the first four letters of its name if it is one word otherwise it’s the first two letters of the first + second word.  In this case, Rocky Mountain National Park’s shorthand is ROMO, and since Rainy’s a huge Dallas Cowboys fan, it’s an easy one to remember.  Although many of our prior camping reservations got cancelled due to Covid, we really lucked out on this visit.  Nearly all the campgrounds inside Rocky Mountain got shutdown due to either Covid or fires, but our loop of Glacier Basin stayed open and it was a great campground.  There were deer all around the campground and its close location to lots of hikes was uber convenient.  It was maybe a 10 minute trip on Ruby Sue to everything around Bear Lake.  Bear Lake itself is nice, but the longer hikes to either Nymph/Dream/Emerald Lakes or to Alberta Falls were excellent.  Our 3+ mile R/T hike to Emerald Lake was one of our more memorable hikes for several reasons.  It’s an uphill trek from Bear Lake to Nymph Lake, then Dream Lake (really beautiful), and finally to Emerald Lake.  The trail ends at Emerald Lake and there are various rock outcroppings which were perfect for our typical PB&J lunch.  While eating, we were accosted by what I thought were chipmunks, but were just a variety of small, but tame squirrels.  There was an obnoxious kid feeding them, who started yelling when that just attracted the whole army.  His name was Elijah, and this wasn’t the last we’d hear of him.   On the way back, we stopped a couple times for photos and as we came around a corner, two large female elk burst out of the bushes and onto the trail about 30 feet ahead.  I confess that my billygoat genes kicked in and overwhelmed my protect the wife instinct as I think I scaled 20 feet up some nearby rocks in a half a nanosecond.  When she turned around to find me, I was like “uh, hey sweetie, come up here.”  Fortunately, the elk moved away from us and joined a group of probably 8 other females just off the trail in a little clearing.  Then, almost majestically, this big male joined them and casually started munching on some shrubs.  We spent several minutes with other hikers admiring and photographing the gang of elk.  Suddenly the peace and quiet was interrupted as Elijah burst on the scene.  His dad weakly tried to constrain him as he walked out into the meadow toward the elk.  Rainy whispered “video this” and I quickly started capturing the scene with visions of TMZ writing me a big check.  His dad finally convinced Elijah that petting the animals was a bad idea, so my video fame was not to be.  Probably the best outcome.

We always ask the Park Rangers for their recommendations for sunrise and sunset pictures.  Sprague Lake was very close to our campground, and has a great set of peaks in the western background.  So one morning, we got up with the sun and got some nice sunrise pics as well as shots of the mountains reflecting off the lake.  One of the hikers was very enthusiastic giving an ongoing commentary of how gorgeous everything was.  I think it was in the 70-80 decibel range cuz we heard it all around the lake.  She was right though, it was beautiful.

Also on the east side of ROMO is Moraine Park.  I think they call any large relatively flat area a park as there were several in the area.  This one is known for frequently hosting a large herd of elk.  One afternoon, we drove there to see if they were around and although not near the main road, we did see a good size herd in the distance.  Again, Ruby came through as we were able to get down a (legal) dirt road and get a bit closer.  Not super close, but no Elijah to disturb the elk.

Rocky Mountain is really beautiful, but most of our stay unfortunately included a lot of atmospheric smoke from nearby fires.  So the sky and reflection colors on many of our pictures are a bit muted.  Most importantly, there was some rain in the forecast, so relief was on the way.

What the

Hail?

Trail Ridge Road is the main road in the park, climbing as you go east to west up to the Alpine Visitor Center which sits just shy of 12000 feet elevation.  Before that road was built, there was the Old Fall River Road, which still exists, but it’s now a one way dirt road that winds through forests and mountains with the occasional treacherous looking dropoff.  Not crowded and perfect for Ruby.  We decided to drive up Old Fall River Road and back down to our campground one day.  The weather forecast was clear until late afternoon, so we took off.  Fortunately, our cold weather gear is waterproof.  Anyway, the trip up was fun.  A bit bumpy, and Chasm Falls was a nice waterfall, but we ran into a small roadblock at one point.  Seemed that some cyclists wanted to ride down from Alpine, against the one-way flow and a Park Ranger had stopped them.  Eventually we got past, but we never learned if they were forced to ride back to Alpine (ouch), got written up for some violation (ouch), or made off with a warning (nice).  Anyway, as we saw the Alpine VC a couple miles up ahead, the skies turned dark and we started to hear some thunder.  We made it there just past noon, before any significant rain hit, and we walked up to the Visitor Center hoping to ride out the storm, only to see a sign that said it was closed due to lightning.  They advised visitors to wait in their cars.  WHAT?  As the rain began, we huddled under an alcove to eat our PB&J.   It was the first notable rain we’d seen on the entire trip and our jackets/gloves and long pants came to the rescue.  We examined the skies and didn’t see any sign of improvement, but no obvious bad signs either.  So we decided to go for it and head down to what we thought would be warmer temps.  Not long after leaving Alpine and heading down Trail Ridge Road, it started to hail.   Not a lot, but it was cold and windy and the little pellets were peppering us pretty good.  And as we continued down, it was apparent that it had hailed quite a bit as it had noticeably accumulated on the road.  We maneuvered Ruby carefully down the mountain, but it was a cold and quiet journey back to Eddie and a chance to thaw out in the warmth.   On hindsight, we loved it.

In Search of

Bullwinkle

In all of our great wildlife encounters, I told Rainy that I really wanted to see a moose.  We had seen bears and badgers, elk and marmots, but no moose…yet.  I had heard that ROMO had moose.  Our last day on the east side of the park was the clearest day yet, thanks to the rain/hailstorm the day before.  We decided to try for some late morning pictures at Sprague Lake again.  It was well worth the stop.  The snowcapped peaks were much more visible and reflected nicely in the calm lake waters.  As we were walking back to our vehicle, we passed a couple of hikers who asked if we had seen the moose at the other end of the lake.  Really?  So we turned back around and YES!  There was a momma moose in thigh deep water just chewing on some of the aquatic vegetation.  These are huge animals and just listening to her wade around and eat was fascinating.  I had my moose sighting!  But I wanted more.  I wanted to see a bull with those enormous horns.  Well, we headed over to the west side of the park for our final 3 days.  On our way to Grand Lake (Just outside the west entrance), we came across several cars pulled off to the side of the road and about a dozen people taking pictures of something.  We joined in the fun and lo and behold, there were 3 different males out in the valley.  We couldn’t get super close, but Rainy’s got a lens for that.  It was glorious and good thing we didn’t get too close as they made the momma we’d seen earlier in the day look tiny.  We spent the remaining days hiking near the headwaters of the Colorado River, venturing to Adams Falls, and driving Ruby up to the Continental Divide.  And I think we saw at least 10 more moose.  When we checked into our campground (Elk Creek RV Park –  excellent), the host told us to watch out for a momma moose and her two babies that frequented the area.  Well, that was a good warning as we literally passed momma and a baby while getting our extra steps in the campground one afternoon.  And the best story was when we hiked up the Big Meadows Trail.  The trail itself was only ok, a nice walk in the woods with occasional deer, but the fun started as we returned to the parking lot.  Literally, 100 yards from the lot a momma moose stood just off one side of the trail and her baby was a few feet off the other side of the trail.  Nope, we weren’t going to come between those two.  They seemed to see our predicament and made us wait about 15 minutes before allowing us to pass.  We didn’t mind, just hanging out patiently and quietly about 50 feet from the family.  They knew they were in charge and the collection of people on the trail and in the lot just let them be.  Perfect.

Rocky Mountain National Park is a jewel.  Great hiking, amazing vistas, and lots of wildlife.  It’s a very popular park for good reason.  It was the first week of nearly a month in Colorado for us.  There are so many amazing places to see and experience in Colorado that a dedicated trip is easy to justify.  Make sure that ROMO is a part of it.  Enjoy!