RMNP – Two Peas in a Pod

5/29-6/2/23

Our last night with Jen and Nate was around the campfire, enjoying each other’s company. Thankfully we will see them again in September for Jeff and Becca‘s wedding. Yay! I love it when all the chickies are together.

Monday morning, Memorial Day, we were supposed to go to Black Gunnison Canyon National Park in Colorado but the mountainous road to get there seemed a little too daunting so we decided to tackle Norwood Hill… no problem! Slow is the key word!
We are headed north to Palisades and are staying at a Harvest Host, Potawatomi Trading Post.

We got there in plenty of time to check out the trading post, explore Palisades and find a couple wineries that were dog friendly. We grabbed dinner at a winery and hung out in the shade for a bit.

Tuesday, May 30th we headed to South Denver and stayed at another Harvest Host, Front Range Inn, in Lakewood which is a southern suburb of Denver. They had a huge parking lot and by the end of the evening, five other RVs were there sharing the space with us. It was a great place to have a late lunch with delicious food and very friendly locals. We headed to a store for a few supplies then found a really nice community park about a mile away and took a long walk around the area with Harley. She needed to get some energy out after the days travel.

Wednesday we headed to RMNP, a.k.a. Rocky Mountain National Park. It was only an hour and a half drive, so we have plenty of time to explore the park once we set up at Manor RV park. Our site was backed up to a raging river, and the first wildlife we saw were the Elks standing in the river and across on the other side. The below pictures are taken standing behind our RV.

We had plenty of time to explore the park. Apparently you need timed tickets to enter the park until 2 pm. Lucky for us, it was after 2 so we went in and drove the Trail Ridge Road, 48 miles to Grand Lake on the southwest side of the park. We got out a few times to take a short walk to the overlook and it was snowing, windy and really cold!! We grabbed our fleece jackets before starting out but should have grabbed the winter jackets and put on long pants! 🥶

Up at the Alpine Visitors center, the ranger told us the weather changes every 10 minutes… she wasn’t kidding!

The Alpine Visitor Center is the highest visitor center in the National Park system!

Depending on which direction you looked, there were different views of the weather. The roads were piled high with snow along the edge, and a cliff with no guide rail on the other… pretty freaky! I can do the skywalk over the Grand Canyon but these roads made me really anxious!

Once back at the RV, we strategized our route for tomorrow. #1 long pants, #2 more layers!
Harley came with us today but tomorrow’s plans include walking some of the lake trails which are not dog friendly.

Thursday, we slept in a bit and got going around noon. We drove south to Lily Lake and did the stroll around the lake. It started to drizzle as we got out of the car but this time we were prepared. Rain jackets on ✔️, long pants ✔️, hiking boots ✔️, layers✔️… ready for the day!

We passed through Estes Park on our way to the NP entrance and it was snowing! June 1st!

We then entered the park at a different entrance to travel on the road that was more likely to give us a view of the wildlife. We walked the path at the Alluvial Fan and were amazed at the raging waters falling over the boulders. With the help of binoculars and direction from another visitor, we saw big horn sheep on the rock cliffs, and many herd of elk in the meadows and a moose!

As you can see, the skies are blue again!

Back to the RV for a bite to eat, play with the dog and re-energize before we go back to the park for some more lake walks.
Bear Lake was accessible without a timed ticket after 6pm so off we went!