We arrived at
Rocky Mountain National Park late in the afternoon on Tuesday Aug 14 after a very long day. We got up at 5:30 am to make our half day morning boat tour on the Gunnison River, and the 140 mile drive seemed like the longest we have ever done. I felt like we would never arrive. But we did, and one of the first things we saw after entering the park was a huge herd of about 100 elk just off the road in Moraine Park. Unfortunately there were about 100 cars as well, blocking both sides of the road. I could hardly look at the elk due to the congestion. Unfortunately, we got no photo of the herd.
The
Beaver Meadows Visitor Center is designated as a National Historic Landmark and was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural firm shortly after his death.
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| Beaver Meadows Visitor Center |
All the campgrounds at RMNP were booked solid during our visit. RMNP has a policy that one may only stay a cumulative total of seven nights during a whole season. You can stay 7 days in a row, as we did, or you can break it up, but seven nights is it.
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| Our camp at Glacier Basin |
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| Retro Rig |
We had visited RMNP on two separate day trips about 6 weeks ago. One thing we learned then is that the park is very congested and parking at most trail heads and park features fills up very early in the morning. By 9:00 the parking lot at Bear Lake, a very popular destination and trail head, which holds about 300 cars, fills up. There is a satellite parking lot and a shuttle bus stop on the Bear Lake Road that also holds perhaps another 300 cars. That lot also fills by late morning, and then all visitors are turned away near the beginning of Bear Lake Road. It's a mess.
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| Dorcas at Bear Lake |
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| Bear Lake |
Two bull elk hung out near our camp for several days.
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| Is this two elk, or just one looking in a mirror? |
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| This cow elk was impressed with the guys. I think she was in love. |
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| Dorcas between a rock and a hard place |
We hiked to Sprague Lake, which is about a mile from Glacier Basin Campground.
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| Rock-hopping on the trail to Sprague Lake |
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| Sprague Lake |
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| Sprague Lake |
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| In the dictionary when you look up "idiot" it shows these folks' picture |
It is often difficult to distinguish between spruce and fir trees. The easiest way is to "shake the tree's hand" and feel the needles. The spruce is spiny and and prickly: "Spiny Spruce". The fir is soft and friendly: "Friendly Fir".
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| Subalpine Fir |
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| Englemann Spruce |
Grand Lake is the gateway town on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park.
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| Grand Lake |
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| Downtown Grand Lake |
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| Vintage autos at Grand Lake Lodge |
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| The Grand Lake Yacht Club is the worlds highest registered yacht anchorage |
While in Rocky Mountain National Park we did not have internet access at our camp site. In those cases we catch internet hot spots wherever we can, often at public libraries. The library in Grand Lake was is perhaps the prettiest small town library we have found.
The west portal for the
Alva B. Adams Tunnel is located at Grand Lake. The tunnel is part of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, which transports water from the Colorado River basin on the West Slope to the Big Thompson River at Estes Park on the Front Range, across the great continental divide.
From Wikipedia:
- The Alva B. Adams Tunnel is the principal component of the largest transmountain water project in Colorado, the Colorado-Big Thompson Project. The tunnel transfers water from the western slope of the Colorado River drainage to the eastern Front Range of Colorado. The tunnel is 13.1 miles long and has a concrete lined diameter of 9.75 feet. The tunnel drops 109 feet in elevation along its length and runs in a straight line under the Continental Divide from west to east passing under Rocky Mountain National Park. At its deepest point, the tunnel is about 3,800 feet below the surface of the mountain peaks. Construction began on 15 June 1940, but was suspended as a result of World War II priorities, from the end of 1942 to August 1943. The tunnel was holed through on 31 March 1944, an event that was broadcast throughout the United States by NBC Radio.
Forgive me, but this project, as well as the Gunnison Tunnel discussed in the last post have a special fascination to me. In college I majored in Civil Engineering and specialized in water resources. Both projects also represent gross examples of inter-basin transfer, which, when I studied, was illegal in North Carolina.
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| Lily Ridge and Lily Lake |
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| A juvenile yellow-bellied marmot |
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| Black-billed magpie |
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| Female mallard on Lily Lake |
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| Moraine Park |
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| Muskrat on Lily Lake |
Scenes from the group camp area at Glacier Basin Campground:
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| Are these guys Marines or what? A little too structured for my taste. |
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| This is more my speed |
Following are views from Trail Ridge Road, the high road that traverses the park.
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| View of Moraine Park and Estes Park |
So what is a "park" anyway? In the early 1800s French speaking trappers called broad mountain meadows "parques" meaning enclosures. Later ranchers used these broad, open spaces to graze livestock. Today Rocky Mountain National Park preserves many of these "parks" within its boundaries.
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| Throughout much of our time in Colorado views have been obscured by smoke from wildfires |
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| Some friends we met in Alaska last year recommended this place |
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| A view from downtown Estes Park, the eastern gateway to the park |
We saw a large number of these teepee-like piles of wood along the roads. These piles result from the cutting of trees in an effort to control the mountain pine beetle in the park. The piles will be burned during the winter when it is safe to do so. Click
HERE to read about the mountain pine beetle and control efforts in the park.
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| Black-eyed junco |
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| Chickoree (red squirrel) |
This chipmunk was very fascinating. He would climb and jump from seed pod to seed pod of a thistle plant, enjoying eating the seeds.
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| A chipmunk on the thistle |
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| A walk in the high meadow |
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| Elk family |
I took about a dozen photos of this "squirrel" before I realized he wasn't real. Some clown apparently found a squirrel-shaped stick and hung him on a stump as a joke. Sucker!
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| Faux squirrel |
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| Bug on bloom #1 |
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| Different bugs on bloom |
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| Wyoming ground squirrel |
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| Yellow bellied marmot |
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| Pikas are very fascinating to me. They are in the rabbit family. |
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| Bighorn sheep |
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| Steller's Jay |
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| This would be a great shot if he would just turn around! |
We really wanted to see a moose. We worked really hard to find a moose, but failed miserably. Moose are not native to RMNP but have wandered into the park during the last few years, and are seen more often on the west side of the park. Rangers told us that moose had been seen the last few days at Sprague Lake and Lily Lake, so we spent a lot of time there looking. No luck. Besides the thrill of seeing a moose, I really wanted to show a picture in conjunction with this neat little tune I found. So let's all pretend I posted a picture of a moose, and click
HERE to listen to
Moose On The Loose by Ozomatli.
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| I'm really a moose |
We attended a ranger talk every night at the campground. One night they talked about elk and moose in the park. We did a group exercise to build a bull elk by identifying all the positive attributes that characterize a dominant bull elk, and enable him to get all the ladies. At the beginning of the exercise the ranger asked for someone to give a name for our virtual bull elk. Someone from the back of the amphitheater shouted "DORCAS!" so that was the name of our big bull. Go figure.
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| Longs Peak (14,259') is the tallest peak in the park and the only 14er, viewed from Bear Lake |
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| Yellow bellied marmot |
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| You lookin' at me? |
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| Mule dear yearling near camp |
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| Perched pika (great picture Dorcas!) |
Did I tell you I liked pikas?
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| Another pika |
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| A pair of ravens |
Today, Tuesday August 21, we departed Rocky Mountain National Park after spending 7 nights here. We intend to be at Fall Lake Campground near Ely MN on Friday, 1200 miles away. There we will rest up and reorganize before embarking on our annual Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area camping trip. Until then ......
The End
