I slept on the side of the road after stopping to see the stars. I awoke to what had been only slightly illuminated by passing cars the night before. What a dramatic and beautiful change in scenery. After this day I learned one thing for sure: I would die in Alaska, it would murder me.
The roads to Rocky Mountain National Park and the little town of Estes Park just outside were gorgeous.
Estes Lake provided the entry point into the town. This place is pretty far from Denver and I was surprised to see such a large town. It had its own power plant, which makes sense since it was so far off from the suburbs of Denver.
The moraine (between the mountains where a glacier had passed) reminded me of east Colorado but nestled amongst the mountains.
The sun was coming up over the mountains and showing the haze from blowing snow and the collecting clouds over the peaks.
The landscape is so dramatically different from the plains, and every direction I would look has different types of trees and rock exposure. They are called the Rockies for a reason.
I edged closer and closer to the mountain peaks through the valley.
The creek was thickly iced over in most areas with gushing water exposed through. Along certain points of level terrain there were ponds. The most brilliant green algae was underneath the ice.
Every boulder on this slope was larger than myself or my car. Some were so large as to have made their own rain-shadow and had a dramatic shift in trees on the other side.
I was told by my aunt Sissy who works for the INDNR that these are Aspen. Being that I am most familiar with eastern deciduous trees, she helped me out. This is the only tree that had writing on it, and had aged and stretched bark as to make most of it illegible and foreign looking.
I am SO glad I brought this hat. If skin were exposed it would have been frostbitten. The only drawback was that my breath was condensating on my mustache and snot-sickles formed.
It was 3 miles from the trail-head to where the trail doubled back over through the valley.
Once the trail started the other way it zoomed up the mountainside. I had heard the raging winds from the valley but as soon as I got nearer to the ridge the winds were biting cold. The valley floor was around freezing so when I got higher in elevation and as the sun went down I can only felt my hands screaming at me to stop taking pictures. As soon as I got further up the slope I turned to my back and there was the peak with its snow capped and windy vestige. Even with gloves the biting cold bit hard. Ha, you can see droplets of the most tasty mustache water.
Cub Lake was completely frozen over and provided the prettiest backdrop.
The wind held drag races across the surface. I couldn't tell who won, but I watched intently for a while.
The entire time I was on the slope it sounded like a hurricane above me, the trees were swaying dramatically back and forth. Fallen trees that had been caught on other trees creaked loudly, and made me nervous to walk underneath.
This grove of trees was ever so perfect. The bark went from cream to white as snow with the branch pinches black as night.
These trees had the reddest bark I have seen. the picture did not capture their likeness as with the entire park. I can not express in words how beautiful this trail was, and this was just 7 miles.
It looks like its light out, but it was noticeably darker and I had no intentions of being here in the dark. I was ready for the trail to be over since my hands were so cold and the wind had started up my spine and feet every step I took. The wind whipped up snow in cyclones and sprayed it all over my face whenever I passed.
To my back were the mountains the whole push back to the trailhead.
As soon as I saw the moraine I knew I was close to where I had begun, and gladly so.
I thanked that the light had run out and said goodbye to the mountains for now. I wished to camp and return the next day but it was expensive and was not within my budget. I did buy a "America the Beautiful pass" which allows me to go to any national park as much as I want within the year. I am off to several National Parks from here so it was a good purchase. AND this pass lets me have a car load of people...so any takers? I come back through the desert and then we go back west to Yellowstone?
Since I couldn't camp out in the park I headed back towards Estes Park and went to Main Street. This town, apart from the roadside suburban sprawl-type chains, was the cutest "give a boner to Thomas Kinkaide" town. He would love it here I'm sure of it, he'd make love to it for sure. I can't believe I almost worked for the guy. I would have to added daubs of paint to giclee prints by the way.
Main Street had plenty of cute shoppes that were useless to me, Christmas stores, bead shops, and rustic furniture. You can fully outfit your cabin fom this shop right here. Complete with taxidermed wolf and all. This town is complete with a creek running down the center of it, with a water wheel like in Thomas' paintings. He'd so get a boner here. Although I had not seen a shop that sells his paintings in them thankfully, I bet the residents know how to use a camera.
The land is so beautiful and makes one appreciate how exceptionally large and diverse this entire planet is. Indiana has its pretty scenery, too few and too far between. It was nice to see a change in landscape in Kansas, it was beautiful. Hoosiers, just be glad you're not Kansas.
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