Tom's National Park Adventure

Rocky Mountain National Park is beautiful. That probably has to be the lamest description ever written about this unbelievable park. The park was established in 1915. It was the 10th National Park created. The park is 415 square miles. The biggest attraction are the Rocky Mountains themselves. The park has over 120 named peaks with 20 that have peaks higher than 13,000 feet. The tallest “Longs Peak” comes in at 14,259 feet!

There are so many things to do and see here. I am going to try to do as many as I can. I think i caught a huge break with the weather over the next two days. The high is supposed to be 78 and the low overnight of 48. Chamber of Commerce weather.

I left my cousins house around 7:00 this morning and was able to gain access to the park before the “timed Entry‘ slots started. If i had failed to do this, I would have not been allowed into the park until 1:00 this afternoon. I got lucky again when i found my campsite empty. The people who had it yesterday left very early this morning. So i was able to set up my camp and had the rest of the day to go explore!

I drove to a visitors center and got my first stamp of the trip in the Passport. Unfortunately i had to wait in line for almost 30 minutes in order to get back into the park!

On the way back to my camp i had to stop and get some pictures along the way. It is stunning

I have heard the term “Quaking Aspen” many times. I didn’t really have a good understanding of why the term existed until i saw this tree. I had to take a video because a still photograph just wouldn’t convey the meaning of the term. Check out the leaves. They vibrate and move with the wind so that the whole tree seems to be moving ……but its standing still……its just the leaves quaking.

I will have a full day tomorrow. I plan to head out around 6:00am and drive over to the west side of the park. I will send more pictures when i get back tomorrow.