July 26, 2006

July 26, 2006

This morning we head back into Rocky Mountain National Park and begin the Trail Ridge road. Similar to the Beartooth Pass road we did into Yellowstone, this road goes up over the mountaintop. We stop at several overlooks along the route including one beautiful vista where we lunch on peanut butter sandwiches and milk while soaking up the view. Several bold little ground squirrels or chipmunks try to help me finish my lunch.

The road continues to climb and eventually passes above the treeline (11,500 ft) into grassy alpine tundra with splotches of snow. We stop at the Alpine visitors center at the summit and hike up to a nearby hilltop for some nice pics. At the hilltop, the temperature drops suddenly and the wind picks up. It looks like it may rain again. We head down the mountain and decide to hit camp early at the Timber Creek campground. We pick a nice wooded campsite. As soon as I get the awning deployed, it begins to rain. Aimee and I move indoors and read for a couple hours till it blows over. Apparently it rains almost every afternoon in the Colorado Rockies.

When the rain finally clears, I head to the Colorado River a few hundred yards away to fish. I end up having to hike farther downstream than planned because of a beaver dam that has flooded the marshy river area near the campground. Unfortunately the hike was a waste of time as the rain made the stream muddy and unfishable. This stream is the headwaters of the same Colorado River that eventually flows into the Grand Canyon and beyond.

After dining on BBQ chicken this evening, we hike over to the ranger station and hear a talk on moose. On the way back, we see a coyote trying to separate an elk baby from the rest of its herd. The temperature is very cool and we are thinking tonight might be the coldest of the trip. Once back in the RV, I figure out how to turn on the furnace just in case. It works. This is the one item on the RV that I had not pretested. I didn’t think we would need the furnace during the summer.