On to Colorado

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We spent 44 nights and just over 2400 miles to get from Florida to Scottsbluff Nebraska. But now we are a days drive from our first stop in Colorado where we have over 20 weeks planned all across the state, leaving in late September. It’s about 180 miles to Boyd Lake State Park in Loveland. It will be the first of 6 planned stops in Colorado State Parks for a combined 65 nights. Like some other state park systems throughout the country, Colorado requires a vehicle entrance fee each day and it isn’t part of the camping fee. In our case, getting the annual pass is a no-brainer. Plus it will permit us to enter other state parks for hiking or other recreational purposes.

It didn’t sound like the park office at Boyd Lake would be open on the Tuesday we were arriving to purchase our annual passes but we found an place near the Colorado Welcome Center along I-25 at Fort Collins. This welcome center was excellent. They had literature for all parts of the state not just for the parts around Denver. The workers were a bit jealous of our extensive plans and we picked their brains for other suggestions of things to see and do. Back at the rig, we had lunch and then unhooked the Jeep and Chris drove to get our annual state park passes.

After she returned, we hitched back up and had a short drive into the park. It felt a bit strange coming thru the entrance station to the park. They saw our pass and waved us through without even asking if we had a reservation. I assumed a ranger or camp host would stop by while we were setting up but nobody dropped by to confirm we had our spot reserved. The sites here are electric only. There is a dump station and water spigots scattered around the park. When we were booking a site here, we had investigated where the water fill points were and found a site right next to one so we could simply fill up from our spot. It can take some time to fill our 105 gallon fresh tank! We only booked this one for 9 nights since it didn’t have sewer at each site. We figured we could use the facilities at the park during the week and use ours during the weekends when things get busy here. It was pretty empty on that Tuesday with maybe only one third of the sites occupied but by the weekend it would be full.

Estes Park is the very popular town at the eastern entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) and is just a 32 mile drive from our campsite. We already have plans to visit RMNP in late June, but then we will be located at the western entrance so if we want to see this side of the park, it will be easier to do so now. In late May, RMNP will be on a timed entry permit system. So besides needing our National Parks pass, we would need to get a timed entry permit for the date and time window we want. The weather is looking nice for our first full day, so off to Estes Park we go.

Lake Estes View

The drive along US-34 up through Big Thompson Canyon is quite beautiful. We have actually been in this area before. Chris had a business meeting and we took a few days off to do a very fast tour of Colorado. That was back in 2011 and I don’t remember much about the trip. I hope we do a better job this time of making memories here since we are on a much slower pace and don’t need to feel rushed. We stopped at a couple of the pullouts along the drive to soak in the scenery.

View Along Big Thompson Canyon

We didn’t have a specific destination within Estes Park but we saw a sign for the visitor center, so we stopped there to get some ideas. After a little investigation, we decided to start out with the Estes Lake Trail. It’s a 4 mile loop that goes around the beautiful lake in town. There isn’t much elevation gain along the route, but we are now at 7,500 feet, so the air is a bit thinner and we don’t want to overdo it. We had heard it would be likely we would spot elk somewhere around the lake, but we didn’t expect to see them just a few hundred feet from the nearby parking garage. And it wasn’t just one or two elk but closer to 25 of them! It was a warm and sunny day and the majority of them were resting in the shade of nearby trees. Some of them are just 10 feet from the trail but we take the warning signs seriously. I don’t want to be the fool seen on somebody’s cell phone video getting charged by one of these large beasts.

Warning: Aggressive Elk

We did the loop in a clockwise direction although it doesn’t matter. We can spot the Stanley Hotel about a half mile away. It looks like a very pretty place and was Stephen King’s inspiration for the his book “The Shining”. However the 1980 movie was not shot there, so we were less inclined to go check it out during our visit. A pedestrian bridge takes us over the Thompson River as it flows into the lake.

Stanley Hotel on Left

Another Lake Estes View

Bridge over Thompson River

Looking Back Up River

As we hit the eastern end of the lake, I was expecting the trail to go across the top of the dam which creates the lake but that route isn’t open to the public and instead goes well around the dam. The next half mile of the trail parallels US-36 so it seems a little less enjoyable with all the traffic. For the most part, it’s the distance views that ‘make’ this walk so nice. But there is one problem. The power plant for the town is at the western end of the lake and there are lots of high voltage lines and towers radiating out from the plant. It doesn’t improve the scenery here but doesn’t completely ruin it either. As we head back to the car, we pass the herd of elk again. Some have moved and a few are in an area where water sprinklers are running for the local golf course. Guess that helps them stay cool without any effort. We grab a picnic table by the river at the visitor center and have our lunch before heading into RMNP.

Dam at Estes Lake

Pretty View

Power Plant

Shaggy Elk

There are three entrances to RMNP. Two on the east side and one on the west. Each entrance has a visitor center just before getting to the entrance stations. This is convenient since it doesn’t require park entry to go to these visitor centers. A fourth visitor center is near the high point of Trail Ridge Road - the main road through the park east to west. Right now many miles of this road still aren’t open due to snow. It typically doesn’t open to traffic until late May or early June. We stop at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center to check it out and pick up additional information or maps we might need and ask the ranger for recommendations.

Stained Glass at Visitor Center

Just a short distance in from the entrance is a left hand turn unto Bear Lake Road. This is a 9.5 mile road generally running to the southwest. This portion of the park is “the” destination for most of the more popular hikes in RMNP. When timed entry comes into effect, there is a special entrance pass needed to get into the Bear Lake corridor. We are early enough in the season that the special pass isn’t required and it isn’t exceptionally busy either. This road gains 2000 feet in its length and will end at just over 9400 feet at Bear Lake.

While the road itself is clear of snow, we were told at the visitor center to expect snow on the trails at Bear Lake. It was suggested we stop at Sprague Lake first for a short walk around this lake. It’s only at 8700 feet and was told the trail is mostly free of snow. The turn for this lake is at about 5.8 miles along Bear Lake Road.

View at Sprague Lake

The walk around the lake is 3/4 mile and mainly flat so we only have the altitude to contend with. It’s a beautiful walk with great distance views. Mountains to the north are generally snow free while those to the south are still quite snow covered. Sprague Lake is free of ice and a few ducks were out enjoying what had to be cold water. There was a 40 foot stretch of snow covered trail but nothing we couldn’t handle even without our hiking sticks.

View to North

View to South

Our Short Snow Crossing

We continue along the road and keep going up. The parking lot at Bear Lake is pretty large - maybe 250 parking spots. But it sound like it is generally full very early in the morning during the summer months. During the busy times, they have a shuttle service from other parking areas to help alleviate the congestion. We arrive and there is plenty of parking.

Bear Lake Entrance

The lake is just a couple hundred feet from the parking area so we are able to quickly see what we are up against if we choose to hike around the lake. The lake is nearly completely covered in ice but I don’t suspect it would hold much weight if we were to venture across. Lots of others were walking around the lake and many of them were much less prepared than we were. We had long pants, hiking boots and poles but no snow cleats. Many of the other visitors were in shorts and had simple sneakers for their footwear. We figured we could handle the 2/3 mile walk. Just as we started some sort of unique looking blue jay landed on a branch just overhead. Once I had cell coverage again, I determined it was a Steller’s Jay. It is quite different from the typical blue jay we are used to seeing.

Frozen Bear Lake

Steller's Jay

As we started counterclockwise around the lake. We found the trail to be half covered in snow and ice. Unfortunately the trail was far from level and many of the snowy spots were on small uphill or downhill mounds. Nothing too strenuous but challenging to keep on our feet and off our butts. As we came around the far side of the lake, the trail was completely snow and ice covered. There were spots were you could tell some previous hiker had broken thru the snow and was up to their knee or worse. We did our best to avoid the same fate.

At times along the southern shore, there was the obvious track of others over the snow that we were following. But about 30 feet away in the woods, we would catch glimpses of bridges or boardwalks that were almost completely snow covered. We suspect that was the intended trail but since the trees aren’t marked everyone was simply following the previous tracks. There was a small snowman along the path that had seen better days. All I could think of was “Ohhhh noooooo Mr Bill” from Saturday Night Live. We made it back to the parking area although the last 50 feet were quite treacherous. We even loaned our hiking stick to a mother daughter combo that needed them worse than us. It was a fun filled day even if we didn’t do any “epic” hikes. Right now all of those hikes would require two hiking poles and some sort of snow cleats if we wanted to make it back safely.

Nearly Covered Bridge

Ohhhh Noooooo

I have a few friends that live somewhere in Colorado now. When our itinerary started to firm up a month or so ago, I reached out to them with that info. We had several stops in the Denver area and one in Colorado Springs and figured one of those locations would be reasonably close to where they live. Mark and Sue are friends and coworkers from my Eastman Kodak days. We have kept in touch and even visited them back in 2015 when they were living in Florida and we happened to be in the area. They currently live within a half hour of Boyd Lake so they arranged a lunch reunion at a restaurant in Loveland. It was really good to catch up with them and hear about their move from Florida to Colorado. Even in the short time we have been in the area, I can see the appeal of living here.

After lunch we headed to the nearby Benson Sculpture Garden. It is a 10 acre park with over 150 sculptures that cover the gamut from historic to whimsical and everything in between. We walked through most of the garden and continued to catch up with our friends. They needed to get back to attend to some normal life tasks, so we said our goodbyes until next time.

Looks Like Florida

We next head to another sculpture park but a much different one. There is a highly favorited geocache on the grounds of Swetsville Zoo which is how we even knew about the place. It’s a 6 acre parcel off of what are now some major roads and the entrance can be easily missed. Bill Swets started creating his unique sculptures back in 1985. In the intervening years he has over 160. It seems like the place is still open but it is for sale so I’m not sure how long the sculptures will survive. Predominantly made of welded scrap metal and car parts, there are some very interesting pieces.

A VW Bug

We took our time and wandered all over the grounds. We have visited a few places like this all over the country and I often wonder how the artist’s mind works to imagine some of the creations. This one isn’t quite as large or macabre as the one we checked out in Palm Springs California several years ago. We got the information we needed to log the geocache and finished up the tour.

Next post, we will continue with the fun in Loveland Colorado.