| So we reached the Rocky Mountain National Park which seemed a good place to pause in our headlong trip east. There is a main highway US34
which crosses the park from Grand Lake in the Kawuneeche Valley in the west
to Estes Park in the east. This is Trail Ridge Road, one of the great alpine
highways in the US. The line in this shot is not a road but the 'Grand Ditch' which
was originally designed to carry water from the wet west to the dry east. |  |
 | The road rises to
12183 ft and is only open in the summer months. The view down to the valley
floor is amazing. The dark patches are caused by clouds overhead. More than
3 million people visit the park each year. That's almost as many as visit
Yellowstone. |
| There are many footpaths including the long path which walks the
continental divide. To the east of this line all rivers in the country flow
to the Atlantic. To the west they flow to the Pacific (OK, so the odd one
goes to the Arctic and some go nowhere). |  |
 | This is Poudre Lake
which flows to the east despite being very close to the divide and to the
source of the Colorado River which goes west. At 10,000 ft it is pretty high up (and very
cold) |
| The roads are very well designed with fairly even grades. They
were built in the 1930s and have been looked after despite the volumes of
traffic. Just as well because you are climbing constantly. There is an old
gravel road which follows the Old Fall River. Now only one way (up), it is a
reminder of what the early roads were like. |  |
 | There is a hill to
the side of the Alpine visitor centre which we climbed to the 12,000 ft
summit. You have 360° views for miles. We were
quite reassured when this young blond fit German tourist got to the top of
the 150 steps panting away. We don't feel quite so unfit any more. |
| This was typical of the view but you can't do it justice with a
camera. Even the movie camera can't really convey how awesome it is. |  |
 | This is the view of
the visitor centre, gift shop and car park. It is all really solidly built
with snow poles at all the corners reaching 20ft into the air. Above
11,000ft is regarded as alpine tundra and trees do not survive. This is a
very fragile landscape. Behind the centre is the summer remains of an active
glacier. |
| It is a lot easier going down the 150 steps rather than up. You
really do begin to notice the altitude and it is still pretty cold even
without wind chill and in mid August.. |  |
 | There was some cloud
and rain about so some of the mountains came and went. One minute they are
there and the next they're gone. |
| These are the lava cliffs, remnants of an ancient eruption many
miles away. Below is a glacial pool. One can imagine that this just fills up
with snow in winter. We are over 12,000ft at this point. |  |
 | Everywhere you look
there are mountain views. Many are named but our maps just weren't good
enough for us to be able to pick them out.. |
| With the rain about it was inevitable that we would get a
rainbow. I don't think I've ever looked down on one in quite this way
though. Despite the number of visitors very few people live in this area.
There are a few ranger huts used seasonally. It is difficult to grasp the
vastness of it all. |  |
 | The lines snaking
across the hillside here are the road as it goes down from 12,000 to 8,000
feet. We put the RV into second gear and held the traffic up all the way
down. Otherwise our brakes would have caught fire. There are signs advising
you to go down in the gear you came up in. |
| Another view of the valley floor taken from Rainbow Curve. We
noticed quite a few dead trees on the west side but many fewer on the east.
The damage is caused by a pine beetle which reduces the tree's ability to
handle drought. Thus the patchy effect. Recently affected trees go red which
makes the landscape look quite attractive - for a while... |  |
There is not as much wildlife as we expected but some is difficult to avoid.
The birds are Clark's nutcrackers which behave like sparrows and the other small
creature is one of the many varieties of chipmunk which appear in the summer
months gathering anything edible they can. They are very hard to photograph and
I have numerous shots of tails! |