Notes from 9,000 Feet

Out of Denver and up to Estes Park today.  The whole drive from Denver is beautiful--the Rockies are right in the windshield all the way up.  Estes Park is a gorgeous setting--if we don't retire to Vermont, I could be talked into coming here, instead.  We got in about 11, bought some sandwiches, and headed into the Rocky Mountain National Park.  We were inside the park about 20 seconds before we saw a herd of elk--an auspicious beginning.  I was surprised to see the elk out in the middle of the day, but they are all still very shaggy with their winter coats only partially shed, and I wondered whether perhaps they are very hungry after the long winter, and taking advantage of the spring to eat their fill of all that green grass.  At any rate, we would, as it turned out, see elk in a variety of places throughout the rest of the afternoon.  The weather was spectacularly beautiful--about 70 degrees and sunny, with fluffy white clouds; couldn't ask for anything better.

We had planned on going down to Bear Lake to eat lunch, but I had forgotten to buy gas in Estes Park, and as we haven't filled the rental before, I wasn't sure how long the supply would last.  So we decided to play it safe, poke around at the southeast end of the park for a bit, eat lunch, and go back into town to get gas before we went to the lake; thus, we spent the next hour or so taking a leisurely drive over to the Aluvial Fan (an area of boulders deposited during a massive flood in 1982, now a waterfall), seeing more elk, and heading on up to Hidden Valley, where we ate our lunch.  Lunch was accompanied by about a dozen Golden Mantled Ground Squirrels who, despite prominently posted signs, have obviously become accustomed to being fed by humans, as the little guys run right up and take food out of people's hands.  When Tim and I were here a couple of years ago, one ran right up the leg of a bench and jumped in my lap--trying to get a Fig Newton, which he did not get.  Today's critters didn't get anything either, but we watched while they swarmed all over the place looking for other people's handouts.

We headed down the mountain, accumulating ice on the hood and windshield wipers.

No sooner did we finish lunch, than it started hailing, slowly at first, and then quite rapidly.  We headed down the mountain, accumulating ice on the hood and windshield wipers.  This was an astonishing turnaround in just a few minutes, and one that made our plan to go back to Estes Park look suddenly a lot less like a waste of time resulting from poor memory and bad planning and a lot more like an act of genius! It wasn't raining at the bottom, and it was pretty funny seeing the dry cars coming up the road, with the drivers doing double-takes at the ice-coated vehicles coming down!

Down we went into the town, saw a few more elk, go the gas, found the hotel, checked in, and toddled back.  Saw a few more elk--"What's that?  Elk? Oh, elk.  Is THAT all?"  (Pretty funny, when elk sightings get to be passe!)

Other wildlife sighted:  several Mule Deer in three or four places, as well as a black squirrel (running away) and a Least Chipmunk (also running away) at Bear Lake. (We heard rumors of Bighorn Sheep at Alluvial Fan, but they were evidently gone when we got there.)  Stupidest animals of the day, not surprisingly, were the humans, who, upon seeing a few people clustered by the side of the road with cameras feel compelled to stop their cars wherever they are--like in the middle of the lane on a blind curve--to see what's going on.  Rainy Sunday at the end of May, and we're in a "What're they looking at?" traffic jam.  Some things are totally predictable!  In one place en route to Bear Lake, the road was completely impassable as two cars had stopped, one in each lane, on a curve.  While traffic backed up in both directions, a dozen people stood up on the rocks peering into the woods at (drum roll):  nothing whatever!  No one could see anything.  (We did not stop and get out of the car...I'm going by the dialogue:  "What's out there?"  "Can you see it?"  "What are we looking for?"  "Where'd they go?")   I'm thinking that someone saw an actual animal and stopped to take photos, thus prompting a whole string of copycats.  Sometime before we got there, whatever it was ran away, and the first person left, but more people, seeing the crowd, kept pulling over to look.  Just call 'em sheep, though not of the Bighorn type.

It stopped raining while we were en route to Bear Lake, and gave us plenty of time to hike the perimeter. (In fact, it didn't start raining again until we were at dinner--we must be living a charmed life.  It's raining ONLY when we don't care.  Amazing!  That must violate Murphy's Law and about 3857 other laws of the universe!)

Tim and I made that hike when we were here, but it was a very different place then.  There's a great deal of deep snow on the hiking trail--especially on the north side of the lake.  We spent quite a bit of time picking our way carefully, as we were wearing tennis shoes, rather than hobnail boots, and one wrong step seemed likely to send us sliding right into the water.  Not interested in a polar bear swim today!  Spent about an hour there--call it 200 photos' worth--and then toddled back down into town for dinner and an early evening. After three midnight + nights in a row, I'm ready for a good night's sleep!

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Newsflash:  Estes Park has a BIG store full of ALL kinds of goodies, right next door to the Subway!  (Yet another good reason to retire here!)  Continuing our tradition of stimulating the Colorado economy (I didn't mention the artwork I bought at the Denver Art Museum...small artwork, local artist, but still...), and in the name of keeping the company value strong, we settled for one Rocky Road apple to share--not going to try another whole one, delicious as it was--and one white-chocolate dipped oreo apiece.  We were egged on in our shopping by a two couples from Ohio who came in to buy chocolates because they can't get them at home, either.  They advised at least one apple apiece, but they settled for chocolate-covered chocolate chip cookie dough.  That's about as decadent as it gets.  They informed me, sounding like experts, that "You can't get this at every outlet!"  I don't think that the stockholders of this company have anything to worry about!  We'll be able to buy a few little goodies for people we like very much before we leave town on Tuesday, and then we won't have to worry whether the two Concourse B (United) Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory counters are open at the Denver Airport at 7 a.m.

Tomorrow:  Up to the Alpine Visitor's Center at 12,000 feet plus.