Our Excursion: 20230910: Colorado Trip – RMNP Day 1
(Part of trip: )
Date of our excursion: 2023-09-10
Location: Rocky Mountain National Park
Mileage: 3.06
Our Planned Itinerary:
| |
Travelers on this Excursion: |
|
We hit some cool places.
|
Continents: North America |
Some featured areas we visited: |
Some points of interest we hit: |
Sunday, September 10, 2023
Rocky Mountain National Park – Trail Ridge Road
Last night we began the adventure. Luckily, we found a wheelchair in Denver so Mom could have a relaxing ride around the waiting zone while waiting for the chauffeurs. After the airport, we headed in the super speed mobile to Chipotle then off to the Stairs Palace where we could burn off all the Chipotle by walking up and down the stairs.
Today we head to Rocky Mountain National Park. First and most important item is to pack the SNACKS!! With this done, we are ready to drive to Rocky. We have the 9am timed-entry reservation slot. We are leaving after 9am and not taking the super speed mobile so we probably won’t make it at 9am but it’s a 2 hour window so we should still be able to enter the park.
At the park, we stop at the visitor center to buy the pass but learn we can only buy those at the gate. At the gate, we get in the slowest moving line. When we reach the gate, we understand why. The ranger is a very friendly and talkative person. He is from Cupertino and tells us that the Donut Wheel had great Apple Fritters and if we had brought those, we could have had a discount on the pass. Sadly, we did not bring the donuts so we bought the lifetime pass for full price. Pass bought = SUCCESS!
Now it’s on to the adventures inside the park! The weather is cold and windy with a chance of showers so we decide to drive Trail Road and experience a few of the side trips. The plan is to use today to start the acclimation process and hopefully not get drenched with rain.
The views are great. We took a hike up the Tundra trail; it was a paved trail through the Alpine Tundra with some interesting rock formations. After climbing on the rocks and watching the clouds rise out of the valley and straight for us, we head back to the vehicle to try to outdrive the clouds.
Next stop – Alpine visitor center, the highest elevation visitor center. There is a short hike here but it ascends pretty steep and has lots of stairs. Great training for Manitou! The peak of this hike is a 12,005 elevation. The clouds have completely surrounded us so we don’t see a view. But, we feel the oxygen deprivation and the chilling wind and take a picture by the elevation sign so we have conquered this hike and can head back down to the warm vehicle. We decide there is no reason to keep going on the road which is engulfed in clouds so we turn around to head back to the hotel. Suddenly, we emerge from the clouds and enjoy some nice views on the way out of the park. We only encounter a few bad drivers who stop in the middle of the road to look at wildlife out in the fields.
The hotel is pretty nice. We have a great view of the river bend. We have a fireplace inside and a firepit outside. We relax for a bit before dinner and watch the raging river and the downpour..
Dinner is pretty good (some options were better than others) and very close. We could walk, but we don’t want to get stuck in the rain.
After dinner, back at the villa, we relax, drink tea, and plan for tomorrow’s adventures.
Wow! Those clouds really were moving! And your mom really did get pushed around on a cart……so how is her knee holding up??
Just don’t go on any dangerous downhill trails with cow poop.
Her knee is doing great! The cold weather and altitude are working wonders! She was able to do squats – I don’t know if she posted that pic yet, but I told her to add it to the album 😆
We are avoiding any cow poop we see because we have learned from the past. Ha!
Just finished looking at the three days of pictures with gma and Diane.
We should be posting a few more of the days tonight. We’ve been so busy looking at trees and drinking tea that we haven’t finished creating the photo albums yet. 🌲