Tom's National Park Adventure

Today is my last full day and night at Rocky Mountain National Park. The one area i had yet to explore was the Bear Lake Corridor. This is the most popular area of the park. This area contains over 20 different “Destination” trails of various lengths and difficulty.

This morning i got up again very early and was on my way south by 5:45AM. I had to drive by Sheep lake and ……guess what ….. Another Moose! From what I was told it was probably the same three Moose from yesterday morning. The big male was in the tree line. The little baby had just bedded down in the tall grass along side the lake. So that left Momma alone in the lake eating water vegetation.

It wasn’t even six o’clock when I got to the check point at Bear Lake Road and there was already a line at least twenty cars long! The key to getting a parking place is to get there early. I got one of the few remaining parking spots and proceeded to hike around “Bear Lake”

After hiking around Bear Lake I headed up to Nymph Lake.

I decided to hike over to Glacier Gorge and then on up to Alberta Falls. All of these hikes are not considered to be extremely challenging, however some of the paths were at a 19% grade! By the time I completed all these i was done!

When you are in this type of wilderness, you are sharing your surrounding with the local Wildlife. Sometimes they leave reminders of this along the path!

I had had enough hiking for the day, so i drove to the Sprague Lake picnic area and had some lunch.

I have been so consumed with checking out the Park, that I almost didn’t check out the city of Estes Park. The last time I was here was in the early 1990’s. Diane, Kalen, Shannon and I all stayed in a cabin owned by my cousin Chuck Ponche. Boy has this quaint little town changed! A lot can happen in 30 years!

One thing that hasn’t changed is that “The Stanley Hotel” is still in Estes Park. The area around the Hotel has changed, but it is still there! Local lore has it that Steven King stayed in the hotel in the early 1970’s before it had been renovated and was not in very good condition. The story goes that he was very interested in the history of the old hotel and was fascinated to learn of the ghost stories that go along with the building. Steven King then went on to write a famous book that was made into a very famous movie “The Shining”. Can you say…..”Here’a Johnny”

I couldn’t get any closer to the hotel for a picture so I had to do a “drive bye” picture.

I’m heading back to the campground. I will start to breakdown my camp so I can get up early again and head to my next National Park. I should be on the road for around 6 1/2 hours. Arches National Park in Utah

I’ll let you know tomorrow how the drive goes.