ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK

We arrived on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park and discovered that Trail Ridge Road (the only road that goes through the park) still had snow on it and the Park Service wouldn't open the road that day. Oh well - an extra 200 mile detour of driving through beautiful mountain scenery - how would we stand it? Anyway before driving around (and I do mean AROUND) the park, we drove up the road as far as we could and had a picnic lunch. We saw a lot of elk (a portent of things to come).

Once we got to the east side of the park, we went to "Hermit Park", a campground/recreation site owned by Hewlett Packard about 4 miles outside of Estes Park. We got a wonderful log cabin for three nights and it didn't cost us a thing! Only ten minutes to the park entrance, as well. Anyway, we spent the next three days driving around Rocky Mountain National Park, taking hikes all over the place, going to the Moraine Museum, seeing more elk than you could shake a stick at (as well as some mountain goats near the "Alluvial Fan") and finally driving up Trail Ridge Road from the east side when they opened it on our final day there. We waited at the beaver ponds for an hour one evening just at sundown, but we never saw a beaver.

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