Time for a John Denver moment...Rocky Mountain High, love that song and this area....as I said in the last post we are surrounded by great views of the snow capped mountains, meadows and of course the "hummers"
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| Wednesday 20th June... The hummingbirds are still keeping us enthralled.... Frosty overnight but will warm up during the day, we are at 9000ft elevation.... |
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| Wally is working today so we head out with Carole on one of the many ATV trails which will take us from 9000ft to about 10,500ft, it did get a bit chilly but we had dressed for cool temps.... This section of the trail is not far from the RV park and gets much worse with huge boulders a little farther up the track....Carole's ATV is made for this type of terrain but we have seen SUVs heading this way and the Sheriff in his company car....we certainly wouldn't bring our truck up here !!!! |
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| One of the great views from the trails....amazed at how many folks are camping up here, for hiking, ATVing or fishing...dry camping in tents, pop up campers and big rigs such as ours !!!! I might of mentioned in an earlier post that all of the Lodge Pole Pines are either dead or dying from an attack of " pine beetles"...the beetles lay their lava under the bark, that introduces a fungus that stops the tree from obtaining water and dies....every 50 years or so it spreads down from western Canada right through the Rockies....
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| Yorkieman enjoying the ride... |
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| The trail back down to the RV Park...it's been a great couple of hours exploring the mountains, sadly no sightings of moose or elk but we did see a yellow bellied marmot.... |
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| Time this afternoon for Yorkieman and I to have a good walk around the RV park and surrounding area....to the right of this lake is actually quite a big estate or sub division as they call them in the US..... |
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| One of the old "artefacts" at the office & welcome area of the RV park..... A very good day rounded off by the evening games of Fastrack a great card strategy game that we enjoyed playing with C & W and new camping buddies, Dean and Diane....... |
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| Thursday 21st June... Our rides for today !!! Polaris Slingshots (technically a motorbike) with a 4 cylinder Chevrolet engine....they even have a back up camera and cruise control !!!! |
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| This and next pic some of the pretty "spring" flowers seen as we head into the Rocky Mountain National Park and the drive up to the Alpine visitor centre at 11,796ft..... |
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| Switchbacks and great scenery on the drive up.....we have driven this road over from Estes when we visited RMNP a few years ago...it was earlier in the year and a lot more snow !! |
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| Still lots of pockets of snow at Alpine... |
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| Photo taken on telephoto.....the unpaved Old Falls River Road runs through this area, only open from July through September.... |
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| Back down and Kawuneeche or now known as Coyote Valley and the Colorado River on the Continental Divide.... |
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| Had hoped for more sighting of elk and moose but at least we did see one elk.... |
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| Yorkieman and Wally at the pull out where we saw the elk (previous pic) |
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| This and next pic Carole and I.... |
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| Looking at this photo makes you realise that your backside is very close to the road !!!! |
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| Old vehicles at the Historic Grand Lake Lodge..... |
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| The view of Grand Lake from the lodge...sorry no pic but usual log cabin type building... Camp staff (we are included) Pot Luck Supper this evening, great food and company, a lot of RVers especially full timers work at the camps to help pay for their "rent".....Fastrack to round of a fantastic day... We have thoroughly enjoyed our time here at Winding River RV Park, Grand Lake and RMNP.. We can thoroughly understand why folks come back here year after year.... Tomorrow we head across the Rockies and down to Pueblo, CO.... Until the next post and I promise to do a bit of catch up.... A very contented Yorkieman and Mrs Blogger.... |
