Michigan to Oregon 2019 - Day 4 - Rocky Mountain National Park

August 24 - Saturday
Greeley to New Castle, Colorado

Our route took us north of Denver and through Loveland. We stopped at the visitor center there to pick up a map. We also found this sculpture covered in locks, just like the bridge in Paris and in Mainz last summer.

Things are starting to look a little drier.....

and rockier too. The Big Thompson River canyon.

In 1976, these two law enforcement officers lost their lives while working to save people from a major flash flood event in the canyon that took the lives of 140 people.

In the Rocky Mountain National Park heading up Trail Ridge Road at the Long Peak viewpoint.

What the Many Parks Curve Overlook looked like on the phone.

What it looked like on the ground.

Looking east at the road we had just traveled.

Getting higher and higher.

We might have been a little jealous except the road is so narrow with almost no shoulder that biking it can't be very relaxing and you aren't going to be able to do much scenery watching.

We are between 11,000 and 12,000 feet now, it is pretty windy and only 51F.

This little guy greeted us at the trailhead for the Tundra Communities, elevation 12,090.

It is very windy and it doesn't feel like August anymore.

There are 130 square miles of tundra in the park.

The wind chill factor made us VERY glad that we had our micro puff jackets with us!

This was our toasty lunch spot....well it was mostly out of the wind.

And it was a good place to watch this cloud that looked a lot like the wing of a bird.

It made for good people watching too.

Time to move on.

The little specks down there are elk. We've seen plenty of them during our time working in the woods but most people haven't had that opportunity.

The sad thing was to see so much bug killed trees in the park. It just looks like a big fire waiting to happen.

Milner Pass - 10,759 feet but out of the wind so it was already warming up. 

Looking east at Poudre Lake.

And looking west towards the Pacific Ocean, our home territory. It felt good to be back on the west side of the continent in a strange, unexpected way.

Our last stop in the park was Holzwarth Ranch where it was back up to 70F.

This is the Colorado River only a few miles from the headwaters.

The ranch was also a resort for many years.

Dinner in Kremmling at the Grand Adventure Brewpub.

That is a wildlife bridge across the road.

The Colorado River with a lot more water.