Snippets from the Brodies: Rocky Mountains National Park, Colorado

From Boulder we headed to Estes Park, the smaller town that is the entry to the Rocky Mountains National Park – beautiful views of the surrounding mountains, and somehow fuel got even cheaper ($3.33/gallon, which is about 88c per litre – just a little cheaper than home…)

As we pulled into our campground that night our car was making some very interesting squeaky noises, so we decided as a matter of urgency to check that out in the morning before heading into the park, hoping it wasn’t going to be too bad, take too long or cost too much!! So headed to the local spare parts shop and Lawrie managed to fix it pretty quickly in the car park! Drive belt replaced and tensioner pulley… (yay for mechanical skills!!) Then we got on our way to the Rocky Mountains National Park, in the rain…

One of the roads in the park was closed for reconstruction, so we bypassed that one and headed on the main road through the park, the Trail Ridge Road, which is the highest paved through road in North America (not quite as high as Mt Evans, but still 12 183 feet up at the highest point!) The whole park is at a high elevation, with the lowest valleys at about 7800 feet (still well and truly higher than Mt Kosciuszko!). The Park has 77 mountain peaks over 12 000 feet, and includes some of the Colorado 14ers.

Looking over one of the valleys in the RMNP

So we headed through the park on the Trail Ridge Road and passed through the highest point near the Alpine Visitor Centre, where it was just 7ºC (from the high 30s the day before, and really hot even that morning in Estes Park) – although it was really cloudy and with storms coming along, we saw some amazing views and mountains, not to mention the wildlife!

No idea what this little bird was, other than fat and fluffy looking :)

A cute little pika (alpine mouse type thing)

Gathering food for the winter ('summer' up there is about 1 month long...)

Bull elk relaxing in the grass

How we saw quite a bit of the park - SO cold!

Herd of elk in the grass far below

Yellow bellied marmot chirping :)

We were pretty excited to see some of the wildlife in the park, but we still didn’t manage to see a bear (they saw there are 20-24 black bears in the park, but they’re rarely seen) or mountain lion (‘You don’t see them, but they see you’!). We did however see more bighorn sheep, including a bunch of rams together, LOTS of elk (including lots in our campground that night!), heaps of chipmunks etc (not getting any less cute!), yellow bellied marmots, the cute little pika, a couple of weasels, some deer, and MOOSE!!! We saw a moose cow and her calf up really close (but still far away enough J), a few females on their own, and a bull moose from much further away. They are such weird animals!! They should definitely come with warnings though – according to the park information we were given, ‘Moose are large animals with a really mean disposition’ and ‘they have been known to charge at cars’! While mountain lion, the most likely things to kill you here, were described as ‘shy and solitary and rarely seen’…

Moose-ville - the Kewuneeche Valley in the park

First moose sighting! :)

Pretty similar looking to a horse, until you look at the head... or the hunchback!

Then the moose calf popped up from the long grass!

How we spotted most of the moose - similar to Megan & Justin's bear spotting skills I believe?!

We didn’t see any raccoons, coyotes, red fox or skunks, but I get the feeling that most of these are still common in urban areas, and I’m pretty sure I can survive without seeing a skunk! Well without smelling one anyway!

We camped in the Timber Creek campground in the park and it was nice and cool for sleeping, with lots of elk wandering around the park at night! There were signs up everywhere warning about bears (ie. Don’t leave any food or anything with a scent (like toiletries) out of your car, and when in your car place in sealed containers) – but this time at least we weren’t worried as the bears are supposed to be super rare to see here. So no danger there, but as Lawrie discovered from one of the park rangers, the night before in Estes Park (where we stayed that night of course) a bear walked into the local bar in town! So would have been quite a shock there!!

We woke up in the morning to a cloudless and sunny day, but spent most of the day in the car heading through Wyoming rather than backtracking through the park.