Bob & Cindy's 2009 Travel Web Site
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2009 Colorado Trip - August & September
Taylor Reservoir & Rocky Mtn. National Park
After Cindy recovered from her Alpine Loop experience (and my driving along 2000 foot dropoffs), we left to return to a location we had camped before in 2004 when we were on our way to visit son John while he was at the Aspen Music Festival. The area is called Taylor Park ... and it attracts lots of ATV riders, fly fishing enthusiasts, some dirt bikers, and also hunters (this time of year, lots of hunters). And, of course, a bunch of old retired couples like us.
While camped, we took several driving side trips looking for new camping spots on BLM land. This is Spring Creek Lake but getting to it with the trailer would be a problem because of the rough roads. There were no camping spots right on the lake so it might be more trouble than it's worth to get there.
This is the view from our campsite of Taylor Reservoir and looking across at the Collegiate Range. It was peaceful and laid back.
Another side trip was going over to Leadville across Cottonwood Pass. We did this because we wanted to see if we could pull the trailer over the dirt road that goes over the pass (we could).
This is a view of the backside of the mountains as we were going over Cottonwood Pass.
Some of the showers produced a dusting of snow on the mountain tops and ridges (called termination dust in Alaska because it signals the end of summer). They also muddied up the roads which resulted in our truck being trashed again as we wandered around on our exploring expeditions.
We had lots of fog in the mornings as a result of daily afternoon thundershowers, but as it burned off we also had some interesting views also.
We ended up spending a week at Taylor Park before heading up to the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park. On the way we thought we'd see a lot of snow covered mountains but it was not to be. As we got over to the pass toward Dillon we began to run into the effects of the pine beetle infestation on certain species of pine trees. It's similar to what we saw in British Columbia with entire groves being killed off. It'll take some time for nature to repair the damage.
From Trail Ridge Road in RMNP. The road runs above the treeline for about 11 miles. Again, Cindy was NOT HAPPY, but the views are magnificent!
Aspen color in Rocky Mtn. National Park. Not as many aspens as we thought, but we hit the color just right.
We did a hike up from Bear Lake and went through several aspen groves. It was a great day to be out.
Also from Trail Ridge Road looking east. The dirt road visible (middle left of the picture) is the old original road from the early 1900's. It's called Fall Creek road and is a narrow steep drive ... of course I had to drive it and Cindy was NOT HAPPY again, but it was worth it.
A bull moose who wandered through our campground (over by Grand Lake) one evening. He didn't stick around too long but what a huge animal these guys are!
Speaking of Bear Lake, this is a popular tourist spot. Surprisingly, the place was packed with visitors and we were there on a Friday. Too many people for us but one can see why it's such a popular place.
Other wildlife pictures from our trip. All of these are from RMNP.
A Stellar Jay .. common in the Rocky Mountain area.
Common coyote in RMNP (a healthy one too). Probably about 50 - 60 pounds.
A couple of elk pictures. The elk population in the park has become a problem because their natural predators have been killed off. There are a few mountain lions but the wolves were the main predators for the elk and they haven't been around for 50+ years. The elk have destroyed a lot of habitat. To combat this, the Park Service has tried to fence off sensitive habitat area as well as trying some sterilization testing to control population. The idea of reintroducing wolves has been rejected because of the ranching interests lobby. Anyone want to bet that eventually some wolves will work their way down from Yellowstone and find a overabundance of food for them to thrive?
We will leave RMNP on Monday, September 21st and head south. The weather forecast is for possible snow on Monday so we'll see. The past two mornings have been 25 degrees where we are camped but the afternoons have been in the 70 degree range. At this time we think we'll go down to the Los Alamos, New Mexico area for a 2 or 3 days before going on toward Texas.