Memorial Day, 2014: Trail Ridge Road

Trail Ridge Road is the highest, continuous, paved road in North America.  It goes above 12,000 feet in elevation and is pretty, darn, close to our home.

The road is closed in the winter due to snow and had just opened on Saturday for the season.... weather permitting.

Hubba and I have taken the trip once before, but wanted to see the walls of snow.  So after the BolderBoulder and a nap on Memorial Day, we went out.

In Estes Park and at in the lower levels of Rocky Mountain National Park it was shorts and t-shirt weather, but above tree-line we were wearing down-sweaters and knit-hats.

The elevation and topography can be disorienting.  Even for us Coloradoans, an extra mile above sea level is significant.  ;-)

I'm so happy to be living in this part of the world.  :-)

Road Trip: Trail Ridge Road, part 2

I haven't been able to post photos for about a week.

The Blogger photo uploader was undergoing maintenance, so I thought that was the reason.  But I still couldn't upload photos after the maintenance was completed.

I re-booted my router and now things are working much better.  Here (finally) are some photos from our trip over trail ridge road last weekend.  Please enjoy.





Road Trip: Trail Ridge Road

The leaves have been changing and dropping.  The wool sweaters and fleece pull-overs have returned to our selection of favorite clothes.  There has been snow in the mountains.  We haven't had a freeze at our house yet, but certainly it's getting close.

Hubba and I got to talking about Trail Ridge Road and how two summers are now gone and we had not taken that trip yet.

Trail Ridge Road is the highest continuous road in the country.  It passes through Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) from Estes Park to Grand Lake, Colorado.  The road is closed in the winter.

On Saturday, I checked to see that the road was open.  We knew it wouldn't be for long, so we seized the day and went for it.

We were hoping to see some wildlife, but only saw a herd of elk lounging at an overlook with a whole lot of people taking photos of them.

The road winds through the park reaching an elevation of 12,183 ft.  That's more than two miles above sea-level and the views are incredible all along the way.

Once we reached Grand Lake about 80 miles and 2 hours from our house, we took the more conventional way home through Grandby, Winter Park, Berthoud Pass, Idaho Springs and Denver.  The conventional route was a four-hour trip.

We're happy we took the trip because there's a lot more snow in the mountains today and the east side of Trail Ridge Road is now closed.