Finish: Winding River Resort,Grand Lake, Colorado, Colorado
Distance: 93 miles Total to date: 2198 miles
Park Fees: Rocky Mountain National Park: $10/motorcycle for a 7 day pass Campground: Winding River Resort, Grand Lake Colorado; $60 for a small cabin. Resort campground with horse stables & riding, atv, etc.
Gas: Granby, Colorado 3.444 gal @ $3.049/gal $10.50
On Day 7, we left the campground and headed westward down Hwy 34 towards Rocky Mountain National Park. We went up the road from Este Park to the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park. The entrance fee for motorcycles was $10 for a weeklong pass.
After entering Rocky Mountain National Park Hwy 34 is known as Trail Ridge Road and it follows the North Fork Colorado River through Kawuneeche Valley. It passes over Milner Pass and reaches its highest point at 12,183 feet near the Gore Range. It is the highest continuous highway in the United States.
Just as we entered the park, there was a meadow with grazing elk.
Trail Ridge Road winds and winds upward with virtually no barriers from the shear edges. It gets a bit unnerving, and it's scary to look down over the edge because as you ride, you tend to go where you are looking. As a result, I would stop often at the small pullover areas that frequented the highway.
The views were spectacular as you could see the ranges far in the distance. Being 12,000 above sea level, it's an amazing view. Some stormy weather could be seen in the background and we knew sooner or later we would need to donne our rain gear. Al actually went thru a small snow episode.
The landscape started as a meadow area where we saw elk grazing in a meadow. As you went up the mountain, the trees got thinner until we were above the tree line and the land was just tundra.
At the highways highest point, you could walk about a quarter mile on a path to get a 360 degree view of the mountain range. I saw a marmet (looks like a groundhog) resting on a rock. I also saw deer, partridge and elk. Al saw some mountain goats.
The trail crosses the Continental Divide where the streams either flow to the Atlantic Ocean on one side or to the Pacific Ocean.
We got caught in the rain just before we exited the west end of the park. We had our rain gear on and went down the road about a mile to Winding River Resort and took a cabin as it was raining so hard. A few hours after the rain stopped, we went for a ride further down Hwy 34 to Grandby. We saw Grandby Lake with it's marinas and mountain backdrops. Lake Granby is the third largest body of water in Colorado and is actually a big reservoir created by the building of Granby Dam.
On our way back to the campsite, we saw a hawk nest way up on a hydro line, 2 large bull moose that were starting to get angry with each other and a few elk in the woods. It's not good to be on a motorcycle at night in a place like this given all the wildlife.
After we got back, we had a bbq. The night came quickly and the sky was absolutely clear. You could see the Milky Way and I have never seen so many bright stars and constellations. Because it was so clear, the temperature started to drop and we think it might get close to freezing tonight. It's good that Al has his duvet and gel pillow to comfort him tonight.
During our trip we talked with a few people and got some good information of sights to see. An older gent offered to take our picture..."Yall want ure picture taken?"
I took a few pictures for Kareem Abdul Jabar (not the basketball player) and his partner Alana. He was from Chicago and they were on their way to Mount Rushmore.
I also talked with Holly, a very pleasant and down to earth person who was originally from Philadelphia but found her "Happy Place" in Colorado. She really seemed to be enjoying life there, loved the outdoors and the magnificent lifestyle Colorado had to offer. She was off to Laramie, Wyoming to visit friends. They both wanted my blog address to follow along our trip.
The staff at the Windy River Resort were extremely helpful in giving us tour advice and helped us book our next site as it is the long weekend and everything is being booked up.
Tomorrow, we're off to Grand Junction which is about 5 hours away. We will be going thru a scenic pass, so that might change to an 8 hour ride.
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