We took a quick trip to Colorado in October after all. We spent most of post-March 2020 thinking we would not be taking a road trip this year (hence the “Operation See Local Things”). But we decided it was worth the risk to go ahead and take a small trip to broaden our horizons and shake off the cobwebs we’ve gathered since March.
Estes Park, Colorado is only an 8.5 hour drive from our doorstep. We found that was easy to managed in a partial day of driving even with Bo, our family dog, along for the ride. We’ve never been to Estes Park or the front side of Rocky Mountain National Park and really enjoyed the area. We were strict on maintaining social distancing so we didn’t visit any businesses or restaurants on this trip. Restaurants likely wouldn’t have worked well while the older teen in on a strict low FODMAP diet right now anyway. We’ll have to save eating out and the great LYS in Estes Park for next time.
We stayed in Cabin 6 Snowball Strip at Rustic River Cabins for our stay. This little strip of seven 1940s cabins was a great spot right along the Big Thompson River about 1.5 miles east of the edge of town. Our cabin had two bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen, 2 fire places and was pet friendly.
We’ve been to the back side of Rocky Mountain National Park in late May a couple of years ago. But the mountain pass over the Continental Divide was still closed that year (each year it opens sometime in late-May to mid-June when the road over the pass is safe enough for travel). The front entrance was an easy 15 minutes from our cabin this time so we got to explore more of this beautiful national park. And now that we’ve driven through the park over the tundra I can definitely see why they wait to be sure the road is safe!!! There were spots up above the tree-line where there were no railings on either side of the road. It was beautiful and fun to drive but you definitely want to be sure you know where the road is to stay safe.
The elk herds were down from the high country on the city golf course during our weekend. It is pretty great to go looking for a herd of elk and find them where expected! There were a couple sitting near the trail at the Hidden Valley stop in RMNP. And we also had two grazing just outside our cabin door on our last morning.
I think this is the first trip to the mountains where I would have been ready to move there tomorrow. Something about the eastern edge of the Rockies in the high country really called to me and I’m super glad we took this trip.
The Cameron Peak fire blew-up while we were there. The pictures above were taken about an hour apart while we explored the national park from a distance of many, many miles. The winds in the park were a strong 30-mph constant most of the day we explored with gusts up to 60-mph. On our way back down to the cabin, we had to pass a Voluntary Evacuation check-point. It was a minor inconvenience for us, terrible for property and business owners and terrifying for fire fighters. I truly cannot imagine how hard it must be to fight a fire in the high winds over rough mountain terrain. Since we were there most of the area is now under a Mandatory Evacuation for a different fire (the East Troublesome Fire). Everyone hopes the weather will turn and early season snows will help knock down the forests fires in the area before more damage and loss of life occurs. Each year in the recent past the fires seems to get a little bigger and last a little later in the season as the climate changes.
(In case anyone else is feeling the itch to travel here is how we very much minimized our exposure along the way – no restaurants, no grocery stores, no stores or buildings at all except very quick forays for pit stops properly masked and distanced, renting a cabin and always wearing our masks out and about. There was plenty of knitting time on the road and it was definitely worth the drive.)
