Rocky Mountain National Park - A Final Hurrah from the Mountains

Rocky Mountain National Park is not blessed with an abundance of free camping spots in the neighbouring vicinities, and so we decided to stay at on of the paid for campsites inside the park. Unfortunately all but one of the RV suited sites on the easts side of the park are available for reservations, and being the height of summer, all of the sites were fully booked for the several weeks ahead. As usual we had failed to book a site, and so we chanced our luck at the first-come first-served Moraine Park campsite. Thankfully when we arrived at 9am on a Sunday morning, a suitable site had already been vacated, and we paid for a two night stay. Rocky Mountain National Park is huge, and if you have the time (like we do) it warrants a longer stay than two days. Rather than driving long distances each day, we decided that on our third day, we would drive to another part of the park, and hike from there.

Like many of the more popular national parks, RMNP has a free shuttle bus ferrying passengers around the busiest part of the park. The shuttle works reasonably well, and we did several hikes without driving, but the busses are fairly infrequent, and at the popular trailhead you often have to queue for a long time. The park has clearly not invested sufficient money in the shuttle system, and it is nowhere near as efficient as the systems at Zion or Bryce in Utah. If we were driving something smaller than Jim, I would have opted to drive to the trailheads each day.

All of the hiking that we did at RMNP was great; the trails are well signed and well maintained, and the scenery is beautiful. The mountain terrain is not as unique as in some of the parks we have recently visited, but is was a pleasure to be able to hike so easily in terrain which is usually so remote and inaccessible. In particular we enjoyed the 8.9 mile round-trip hike to the top of Flat Top Mountain; the views of the lakes on the ascent are fantastic and the panorama from the summit makes the hike worthwhile.

We tried to hike as early as possible each during our stay in the park. Thunderstorms in the afternoon are a common occurrence, and two people have died this year standing in the wrong place during a lightning strike. Consequently we had plenty of time each afternoon to relax at the campsite; on our first afternoon I repaired the water heater again, this time being careful to clean the burner as thoroughly as I could.

On our third day in RMNP, we left the campsite, and drove along the stunning, but overcrowded trail-ridge road. The road is a worthwhile drive in itself, with stunning views throughout, but we were left disappointed by the inadequate parking along the route. There are numerous trailheads and viewpoints along the way, but even early on a Wednesday morning, many of the parking lots were full, leaving us no choice but to carry on driving, missing what was on offer. The drive was not wasted however, we took a beautiful walk along the eastern portion of the Ute Trail, and got as close as is safely possible to a group of Elk grazing on the banks of a steep mountain stream near to Poudre Lake.

Towards the end of the day, exasperated by the huge crowds, we decided to hit the road again and head east. Our departure coincided with a huge thunderstorm, and thankfully we had the road to ourselves, being one of the few brave/stupid enough to drive the winding mountain road in the driving rain. Rather than spend another night in Estes Park, we continued east on Highway 34, and drove another beautiful stretch of road, this time winding down through the Big Thompson Canyon. A few miles from Loveland, we said a sad farewell to the mountains. The Rockies fell away behind us, and the final stretch of our drive was surrounded by the flat farmland that would be our home for the next few weeks.