It's only 35 miles up to Estes Park but it's a lot of slow uphill pulling for our RV. Many of you have been there before but we were thinking it would be kinda on a mountain top. Well it's in a bowl with mountains all around. Entering the town, we see a herd of elk cooling in a little lake on the edge of town. We find our campground a little way out of town, and while it's not exactly a 'resort', we have a nice view of a little valley with houses dotting the hillside. No picture, sorry. In town from the Vistor Center, they had shuttles taking you around different route. We took one that stopped at the Stanley Hotel. This is an old historic health retreat resort hotel (still in use) Freelan Oscar Stanley of Stanley Steamer fame. There is a actual Stanley Steamer car in the lobby. The Hotel The Car We were told that you need to enter the park 5:30 to 6 am to get to certain areas of the park. When the parking lots fill up the roads are closed. You can take shuttles on in, but isn't that the pits? We had Bear Lake as a destination, and so when we entered the park about 7 am we drove right on in. We did a 0.5 mile hike around the lake. Trail was really well maintained. It was about 8 am and the weather was clear and still. This is the reward. The ranger said this scene was a photo used frequently in park promotion. On around the trail. The weather was absolutely georgeous! ML took a longer hike, but my legs had had enough. Leaving the Bear Lake area, we explored other areas of the park. We spotted a heard of elk resting in some trees. A bull elk and his 'harem' of about 22 cows were there. Can you see the bull's antlers? In case you missed it --- Along the way we saw stacks of wood as for a big bonfire. Turns out these were stacks of gathered up down wood as a fire deterrent measure. They would be burned in the winter with snow on the ground when it was safe. Dead wood on the ground is extra fuel for forest fires. ( in other parts of the park were signs to not pick up downed wood. Go figure). Our campground does not have wifi or even TV reception so we are really incommunicado here. Again we go to the library in town to do the blog. And other stuff. We ventured into the local Safeway store for a few things. What a total madhouse!! Narrow aisles and lots of frantic people. Never again. The next dayThis day we were into the park early again as we had a long adventure ahead. We were going to do the Trail Ridge Road which is over 50 miles of curving, harrowing scenery! At the very north part is a stretch of dirt road which was the main sightseeing routes in the early days of the park. It's one-way going west. See the map below. Fall River Road Driving this road was very pleasant in that you could go very slow and not worry about oncoming traffic. There are sheer drop-offs with a very long drop. Then there are pretty mountain streams. Lots of pictures here. A nifty mountain stream. A switchback Square 'tubes' of rocks in fence wire used for terracing to hold the mountain. (who does all this work?) More dropoffs. The end of Fall River Road at the Alpine Visitor Center. Almost there. We've arrived! Of course ML had to climb the hill on the other side of the road. Here are some views from the top. From here we take the long curvy road down the western side of the park to Grant's Lake. That'll be the next blog. This one is already pretty long.
Stay Tuned.
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Who are We?Chuck and Mary Lou have been traveling Trip Reports
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