Rocky Mountain National Park -- September 2011

Sorry for the delay in getting this post/recap of the trip up...it's my busy season.

Prologue

Sage at Mills Lake, RMNP, June 2006

This photo, taken during our 2006 Road Trip, is one of our favorite images from that trip. It was taken on our very first hike of the trip, at Mills Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, and looking back now, I’d say it was easily one of the top 5 moments of the trip. We’ve always wanted to go back, and after debating other choices of vacation for the late summer/early fall, we decided on heading to Colorado once again. Determining the timing of the trip came down to a couple of things. Going after Labor Day meant smaller crowds, but also meant we’d have to be away from home for 1 or 2 Virginia Tech games. The lure of the mountains without mosquitoes or crowds beat our desires to want to watch the Appalachian State game live, so we booked our trip for the first week in September. This was also right around the time that the Elk rut begins in the park, and along with the rut comes elk bugling. Hearing a bull elk bugle was very high on our list of things we’d love to see and hear, so the chance of witnessing the bugling clinched it for us. We then decided to stick to the Rocky Mountain National Park area, as it’s close to Denver and has a lot of great hikes we wanted to do. Finally, we found some good, inexpensive cabins/rental homes to rent, one on each side of the park. We decided on staying 3 nights on the west side of the park in Grand Lake, and then the last 4 nights on the east side in Estes Park. With everything booked and scheduled, we made our way to the Sunshine State.

Day 1: Saturday, September 3
We woke up at 5:30 am after a good night’s sleep. We got to the airport earlier than usual, for the most part because a friend of Sage’s had flown out of Logan the previous night and mentioned there was a lot of extra security to go through. Thankfully we didn’t run into anything unusual or time-consuming, and we got to our gate in plenty of time. It was a very bright and sunny morning, and we waited for our 8:55 am flight to start boarding. At 8:15 am, however, there was an announcement that our gate changed. So we all shuffled over to the new gate, and 5 minutes later they told us that the flight is actually delayed until 10 am. What you always want to hear to start a vacation. While waiting out the delay, around 9 am Sage decides to go for a walk. And right after, around 9:05, they came on the PA again and told us the plane made up some of the delayed time in the air, and “we should be boarding shortly”. I started to panic as people began lining up to board, so I called Sage's phone to tell her to get back. Sure enough, it starts ringing in the backpack she left on the chair next to me. As it turned out out we didn’t board until closer to 9:30, and Sage made it back in plenty of time.

The flight was uneventful for once, and on the approach to Denver we were lucky to see a large corn maze from the air at Mile High Farms – a pretty cool sight when seen from above. Right after landing I turned on my phone to see the score of the VT game, which showed 38-0 at halftime in favor of the Hokies! The week was looking up! While waiting for our bags Sage noticed a sign for a Tornado Shelter. Not a sight we see back east very often. We got to our car in no time, and headed down the highway toward Denver. We thought about going to the Colorado Hokie Club gathering to watch the rest of the VT game, but by this time it was already the 4th quarter and we didn’t feel like going way out of our way with the Hokies up by 50 already. But we were starving so we found a Red Robin right off the highway where we could have bottomless French fries and watch some other football on the TV. After filling up (and getting the final score of the Hokie game – 66-13!), we stopped at a couple other places for groceries and provisions for the first part of the week. Heading out I-70 West, we entered gorgeous canyons and high mountains, and really enjoyed the drive. (One of the towns we passed on the way was Idaho Springs, whose football team nickname is the Golddiggers. Sage found this very cute.)

We arrived in Grand Lake just before 5 pm. The cabin was small but cozy; old but updated. It was very close to the downtown of Grand Lake, but off the main drag so it was quiet. The kitchen had been updated with modern appliances, and the only drawback was that it was kind of dark and cold in the cabin. After unpacking we walked into town to see the lay of the land and find some ice cream. Grand Lake is a great little town. It has a main street with wide boardwalks along both sides, and is full with gift shops, restaurants, ice cream and candy shops, and even a mini-golf course. Just another block away from the main street is the lake itself, with a marina, a beach, and more ice cream shops. The ice cream stop we decided on was a little disappointing, but we didn’t let it bother us. After the treats we decided to drive into Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) as it was about an hour until sunset and we hoped the wildlife viewing would be good. We stopped at the Coyote Valley trailhead, which is a short hike along the Colorado River. On our way to the trailhead we saw about 4 elk by the side of the road, which were the first of hundreds we saw on the trip. The hike along the river and the Kawuneeche Valley (Kawuneeche is an Arapaho word meaning “coyote”) was very pretty at that time of the day, and we ended up seeing 2 mule deer on the hike, including a small buck who kept wandering around a picnic area as if he was waiting for a late date with a doe.

Dusk in the Kawuneeche Valley

A young mule deer buck in the valley

We drove out of the park around 7:30, and saw a large herd of elk by the park entrance. After reading for a bit and organizing for the next day’s hike, we were both asleep by 9:30 pm.

Day 2: Sunday, September 4
I had a good night’s sleep, but Sage was kept up for a little bit by some loud music and PA announcing that seemed to be coming from the hill above our cabin. I thought it might have been a wedding at the hotel at the top of the hill, but Sage thought it was some sort of church revival meeting. Either way it wasn’t nearly as bad as other loud, noisy stays, and we were up at 6 am to get going on the day. After hot oatmeal and making our sandwiches for the day, we headed out in 31 degree weather to find our rental car with a frosted windshield – and no ice scraper provided by Hertz. No worries, after heating up the car we headed north into the park for our first real hike of the week. We arrived at the Colorado River trailhead at 7:15 am to find a lone cow elk – collared no less – waiting in the parking lot for dawn to break.

I was excited on our trip to be able to use my new backpacking/hiking app for my iPhone from Backpacker Magazine. It basically is a hiking GPS, but also tracks your elevation, hiking mileage, etc. Loading the app and starting it off it showed that we were at an elevation of 9,039 feet to begin. The hike we chose to do first was along the Colorado River to Lulu City, an old mining village from the 1800’s. The elevation gain wasn’t supposed to be much, and we thought it would be a good introduction to the high altitude hiking we’d be doing all week. This turned out to be true, but it didn’t stop us (me mostly) from having to stop every 10 seconds to catch my breath even on the smallest of hills we climbed. We didn’t see much in the way of wildlife on the trail, though we did see a pika on a rock, as well as a startling a couple of elk in a small meadow, who promptly ran away before we could get the camera out.

Small meadow along the trail

We were hiking close to the source of the Colorado River, along the Kawuneeche Valley again, and the valley lies between the main mountains of RMNP to the east and the Never Summer mountain range to the west. Because of this the sun didn’t rise over the mountains and hit the trail until about 8:40 am, even though it lit up the Never Summers earlier than that, which led to some great morning light along the mountains. We got to our turnaround point a little over 4 miles around 9:30, and then stopped for 2nd breakfast near the Lulu City site at 9:45. We found a great spot on the river (actually IN the river, on a small, dry rock bank) and warmed ourselves in the sun.

Lunch spot along the Colorado River

Sage sticks her feet in the freezing river water

Around 10:05 we packed and headed back down the river the way we came, running in to A LOT of yahoos on the trail, including a group/family of over 20 people that created a huge bottleneck of traffic as they stopped to talk without getting off the trail. MANNERS PEOPLE! We finished the hike around 11:45, and the final hike data was 8.20 miles, with a total elevation gain of 410 feet. On our drive back to the cabin we came across a traffic jam on the road. We assumed it was more elk, but it turned out to be a cow moose with a calf! They were kind of far away through some trees, so we only got a couple photos, mostly of the cow’s bum.

Moose calf

After getting back to the cabin and showering, we sat on the porch reading for an hour and soaking up the sun. The cabin was a little quirky in that there was very little light, so inside it felt freezing cold all the time. But sitting on the porch in the sun, we both got really hot from the strong, intense rays at 8,500 feet, so we kept going back and forth -- going inside to cool down and then outside to warm up. Neither of us were very hungry, but we went into town to see if there was any shopping that needed to be done (there wasn’t) and to walk around town a bit. We walked down to the lake/beach area, and we found a rooftop bar overlooking the lake and marina called J.R.’s. We sat down and ordered some Fat Tires had a great time people watching and soaking in the sun. In fact, this day warmed up so much that it ended up being one of the only days we could wear shorts. The town was really packed, as it was Sunday of Labor Day weekend, so after our drinks we headed back to the cabin to make dinner in. We grilled up some chicken and had corn and potato salad which turned out really well.

After dinner we decided to do a short hike that leaves not far from Grand Lake to Adam’s Falls. The hike is only .3 miles each way to the Falls, so it’s very crowded and popular. We looked at the rushing water like everyone else, but it didn’t seem real impressive to me. We decided to keep hiking past the upper falls, and thankfully we did, as after another ½ mile or so the trail turns out into this beautiful meadow. The late afternoon sun was setting and it lit up the meadow like a glorious, natural cathedral. We hiked up and past the meadow (which we had all to ourselves), and then headed back down the trail to our car. Trail stats: 2.0 miles total, 125 feet of elevation gain.

Meadow above Adams Falls

At this point it was close to 7 pm, so we decided to drive once again into RMNP to see if any wildlife would come out at dusk. Sure enough, the same large elk herd came out of the forest in the same field by the entrance station right after 7, and we spent some time watching them eat and gallivant around. After arriving back at our cabin a little after 7:30, we played some National Parks Yahtzee, I read more of my book, and hit the hay early.

Day 3: Monday, September 5
Another early morning, this one happened to be 5:30 am. Not sure if it’s the time change that we didn’t get used to or if we just were excited every morning to get up and start hiking, but we ended up getting up early almost every day. Also, I woke up with a headache almost every morning the entire week, which I put down to the altitude and always feeling dehydrated, no matter how much I ate. But a strong cup of coffee and the fresh mountain air cleared the headaches every morning, and we headed into RMNP once again, this time to the Onahu Creek trailhead. Today’s hike we planned to hike up Onahu Creek, take a turn at Long Meadows, hike up and over a high ridge that would bring us down to Big Meadows, and then take the Continental Divide Trail back to our car. A loop hike – my favorite! The trailhead parking lot was completely empty as we arrived at 6:45 am, and we started up the trail in wool hats and fleeces to protect against the cold air. The start of the hike was at an elevation of 8,790 feet, and we climbed upwards through a beautiful pine forest, with small glades of aspen trees dotted along the way. (We were hoping that the aspen leaves might start to turn while we were there, but it was too early in the season and we saw no autumn colors.) There was no wind to speak of, and the forest and trail were majestically silent. The pine forest wasn’t thick at all, which gave us hope that we could spy some deer or elk through the trees. Sure enough, at one point we turned the corner on the trail and about 50 yards ahead a huge bull elk appeared from the left. Startled, I stopped, and he stopped as well, staring right at me. Then he kicked his heels up, and for a split second it appeared as if he was about to charge me! Before I could dig into my memory bank about what do in the situation of a bull elk charging, I realized he actually was turning 180 degrees and running back into the woods the way he came. Shortly thereafter we saw a group of 5 or 6 other elk on a hill near the trail, and they also quickly scampered off up the hillside. Already this was turning into one of my favorite hikes, as any time I see more wildlife than people on a trail, it’s aces in my book.

Onahu Creek

After climbing over 700 feet, we reached the cutoff trail to Long Meadows and a smaller meadow where Onahu Creek began its long descent to the Colorado River. By this time it was around 8:30, the sun was rising above the mountains, and it was time for a quick snack of Gorilla Bars. Another short but steep climb brought us over a ridge, and then we descended the trail to Big Meadows. Aptly named, Big Meadows was a hay field for a rancher in the early part of the 20th Century until he met a woman who convinced him to give up the fields for gold mining. He was never heard from again, but the meadow remains. We stopped on the edge around 9:40 to have our 2nd breakfast and enjoy the sound of bees buzzing around us.

Big Meadows

The last part of the hike was uneventful, and we wound up back at the car around 11:15 am. Final hiking stats: 8.3 miles, 1,140 feet of elevation gain. Even though this hike was longer and had a lot more elevation gain than the previous day’s hike, we both felt a lot better on this hike, so we were hoping that we were getting a little more acclimated to the elevation. (Later in the week we found out we weren’t as acclimated as we thought. At least I wasn’t.)

We arrived back at the cabin before Noon and after showering I read more of my book, The Last Season by Eric Blehm. This was not only a great book, but it was also appropriate reading for the week as it told the story of a National Park Ranger, who was known for finding lost hikers, and then he went missing in the High Sierra one summer, seemingly without a trace. Highly recommended reading. Sage ended up napping for an hour or so, then we got hungry and went out to find some grub in Grand Lake. The town was MUCH emptier than the day before, and we ended up at Sagebrush BBQ in town. The food was okay, but I’ve had a lot better BBQ in my life. After our meal we decided to walk those ribs and pulled pork off, so we took a stroll around town, which just happened to lead us to another ice cream shop. Feeling full, we felt that some physical activity would help us feel better, so we headed over to the mini golf course in town for a quick 18 holes. Sage highlighted my putting ineptitude by beating me by 8 strokes, and with my ego bruised we headed back to the cabin for more reading, games, and relaxation.

Day 4: Tuesday, September 6
Today was our travel day, where we would check out of our Grand Lake cabin, drive across RMNP to the east side, and check in to our house in Estes Park. Because of this we slept in a bit and woke up around 7:00 am. The weather was very overcast and damp, with showers in the forecast for all day. My headache this morning was the worst it was all week, and I wasn’t even sure if I could drive I felt so bad…even a little bit nauseous as well. After some coffee and Advil it started to get better, and by 8:00 I was good enough to think about what to do next. Our plan was to stop and do a bunch of short hikes along the road to Estes Park, but with the weather it wasn’t looking good. We packed up and drove into Grand Lake for breakfast, which ended up being at a great little bakery off the beaten track. As we entered the park, the weather turned even worse as a steady rain began to fall with the temperature in the low 40’s. Not wanting to be stuck in wet, cold clothes until the afternoon when we could check into the house, we bagged the idea of hiking and decided to stop at the scenic overlooks along the way instead. It rained as we went by Milner Pass (where the Continental Divide passes through RMNP), and then on to the Alpine Ridge Visitor Center, which is high on Alpine Ridge Road at over 12,000 feet. The weather at this point started turning colder, and before we knew it snow started falling. It wasn’t sticking, but the flakes were definitely falling fast. The temperature in the car read 35 degrees, and we spent a short time at the center looking out into the Fall River valley. We saw some elk huddled on a hillside, but the skies were still very overcast and there wasn’t much else to see.

View of the Fall River Valley from Alpine Ridge

Bull elk with the snow beginning to fall

As we kept driving, the cold rain and snow continued and we had almost zero visibility on the overlooks. A few more elk were seen, but that was about it. Eventually the road descended into the Sheep’s Lake area of the park, and we did see a large herd of elk there, but they were far away and wiling away the rainy day by laying low.

We had time to kill, so we stopped at a gift shop near the visitor’s center, and then stopped for lunch in Estes Park. After walking around town to figure out what looked good, we ended up at the Wapiti Pub – which just happened to be the same place we ate at in 2006 during our road trip. In fact, we’re pretty sure we even got the same table as last time! After eating we decided to drive up to the house to see if it was ready to check in, which it was. This house was GREAT! It was located at the end of a dead end road, and it backed up on forest land that was adjacent to the park. The house had a very 70’s feel to it, with a large, circular main room that had the kitchen, living room and dining room, with a fireplace in the center. Then there were 2 bedrooms, each on a different side of the house, a back patio with a grille, and a hot tub on the front patio. As we unpacked and settled in, Sage began to read the guest book to see what others who stayed there had done in the area, etc. Several of the signers of the guest book stated that they saw a bear “by the small pool”. We had no idea what they were talking about, but then figured out they meant the plastic tub of water that was in the side garden. We were excited that we may see some wildlife – even a bear – right from the living room couch!

The weather was beginning to clear a little bit, so we decided to hike up the hill behind the house. According to my map, it looked as if there were trails in RMNP that went straight to the park boundary, and that boundary looked to only be about ½ mile from the house. Unfortunately the hill was quite steep and we couldn’t find any semblance of a maintained trail from the house, so we scrambled up the side to some rocks along the ridge where we got a good view of Estes Park, but that was all. We did see (and hear!) a beautiful hawk on the hike; not sure if it was a Colorado Red-Tailed Hawk or a Cooper Hawk, but it was pretty impressive. After the hike I couldn’t resist turning on the TV and surfing the channels, something we didn’t have at the other cabin. We made a dinner of spaghetti and tomato sauce, played some Trivial Pursuit, and sat around waiting for animals to show up. None did.

Day 5: Wednesday, September 7
This day we knew that the weather still looked iffy, but we decided to do a hike to Cub Lake that was only going to be about 6.5 miles and was good for wildlife viewing in the early morning. We were up at 6 am, and looking outside there still was no wildlife to be seen. We drove to the Cub Lake trailhead, and saw a few elk along the roads that border Moraine Park, another flat area of RMNP that elk seem to congregate. On the trail itself, after about ¼ of a mile there was a large rock outcropping that overlooked Moraine Park that we walked out on. We saw a lot of elk off in the distance, probably at about 400-500 yards away, but then we were blown away when we heard the elk bugling! As I said at the beginning of this blog, one of the main wishes we both had before starting on the trip was to hear elk bugle, and here it was! And to top it off, we even saw 2 young bull elk sparring with each other! Even from so far away we could hear the soft clack of their horns against each other as they each tried to bully their way into the hearts of the cows around them.

This cow elk just popped up to say hello

After watching, listening, and videotaping several instances of bugling and sparring, we went back on the trail toward Cub Lake. Almost right away we went around a corner of the trail and saw a bull elk standing next to the trail, staring at us. Unlike the bull elk we saw 2 days prior that ran away at the sight of us, this one just stood there and stared. And stared. And stared. He was about 50 yards away or so, and we obviously knew enough not to antagonize him, especially so close to mating season. So first thing we did was to make some noise and yell at him. That did absolutely nothing. Our next thought was to back up the trail so we’d be out of his sight, wait for a few minutes, and hopefully he’d forget about us and go away. But when we moved back into sight, he was exactly where he was, still staring.

Bull elk in front of us on the trail, peeking out from behind the bushes

So then we had 2 options left: Either abandon the hike altogether, or try to detour around the trail where he was. We decided on option #2, even though there were signs at the trailhead telling hikers to stay on the trails at all time from September to October, during the rut. (In actuality, we had read the sign wrong. It said to stay on the trails from 5 pm to 7 am, and this was past 7 am, so we were okay by going off trail.) So we detoured off the trail to the right, which happened to go around a bunch of very large boulders, which we kept between us and the bull elk. About 30 seconds into our detour, Sage let out a small scream. All I could think of, as I was lagging behind her, was that the bull elk knew what we were doing and was coming after us! In fact, she had discovered a large elk skeleton! The skeleton was behind a large rock, and was quite old as there wasn’t any fur or meat left at all.

Elk skeleton

After taking a couple of photos, we moved on, and we thought that we had gone far enough to get past the bull. We made our way through an opening in the boulders, back to the trail…only to discover we had undershot and were coming back to the trail EXACTLY where the bull elk was! He saw us and continued to stare, but didn’t make any aggressive moves at all, thankfully. We wasted no time hiking further up the trail, looking behind us all the time to see if he was after us, but thankfully he stayed put, and we were in the clear.

The hike to Cub Lake went past several beaver ponds, and then entered a thick forest of aspen and pine and climbed about 500 feet to the lake itself. When we got there it was very foggy and misty, and there were no views to be had unfortunately. The lake had lots of lily pads and seemed like prime moose habitat, but sadly none were to be seen. We did see some ducks on the pond, and they happily swam around and dove in the pond for food. We ate our 2nd breakfast, and with nothing much to see, packed up to finish the loop hike. As we did, Sage turned around to see 3 ducks walking right up to her! Obviously they’ve been fed before and were looking for handouts. Not getting anything from us, two of them went for my backpack and started pecking at my shoulder straps! Not too smart, but we took the hint, loaded up the backpack, and set out for the hike back.

Cub Lake in the mist

The loop brought us down the other side of the lake, and if it was clear the views would have been amazing. As it was, we saw nothing but clouds. The trail brought us down to a rushing river and an area known as The Pools. By this time the heavy mist had turned into a constant shower of rain, and we knew we had a little over 2 miles of hiking ahead of us. With rain jackets on and our boots laced up, we trudged through the rain back to our car, including the last mile or so along the road, which is never much fun. We finished around 10:30 am, and were both soaking wet and freezing. Hiking stats were: 6.5 miles, elevation gain of 625 feet.

Since it was still pretty early, and we were both kind of hungry, we decided to go out for a late breakfast instead of heading back to the house. We knew that the best place in Estes Park for breakfast was a restaurant called The Egg and I, so we headed there. It was just shy of 11 am, and there were people waiting out the door to get in. Thankfully the wait was only about 15 minutes, and we both had a great omelet with tasty home fries. Back to the house afterwards where hot showers were most welcome, and a soak in the hot tub felt even better for our tired muscles (even if we did have to sit in the rain while we soaked in the hot tub).

At dinner time we headed down to Cheesy Lees Pizza. On the way down our road we saw a mule deer in the neighbor’s yard, and a fox running across a field near the road. We decided at that point that the rental house was one of the best we’ve ever stayed in. Cheesy Lees was intriguing, as it advertised “Estes Park Style Pizza”. Turns out Estes Park style is pretty much like every other pizza in the world: crust, sauce, cheese. It was okay pizza, but I’ve had better. After dinner we drove into the park again to check out the elk at dusk. There wasn’t much going on at Sheep Lake, but when we drove back to Moraine Park there were tons of elk – and tons of people watching the elk. We pulled over and spent a lot of time watching them, including a huge bull elk who seemed to have a herd of about 20 cows with him.

Bull elk with his herd of cows

Close to sunset we headed back to the house to do some reading and to watch the Red Sox blow another lead that would give Wakefield his 200th win. Little did we know how that loss was a harbinger of things to come in the weeks thereafter.

Day 6: Thursday, September 8
The alarm went off this morning around 6:00, and I stumbled out of bed, walked into the living/dining room area in the morning darkness, and tried to get my eyes to adjust to the barely perceptible light outside. (Sunrise in Estes Park at this time of the year was around 6:30 am.) As I was about to look at my iPhone to see what the weather was supposed to be like for the day, I looked out the window at the plastic tub “pool”, and then did a double take. Is that…wait a second…Oh my, a HUGE bear was standing at the tub, drinking out of it! Sage was behind me and I whispered to her to check it out, and we both stood and stared as it was only about 10 feet away! Silly me, thinking that maybe I could get this on video, even though it was barely brighter than pitch dark, I grabbed the video camera and turned it on. As soon as I did that, the bear stopped his drinking and strolled on up the driveway toward the back garage. He didn’t run away like we frightened him, but I guess he just doesn’t like to be stared at. Even if we didn’t get a photo or get it on video, it was really cool, and Sage beamed for the rest of the day. As the sky brightened and we headed out for our hike for the day, we noticed that the trash can next to the garage was tipped over! Thankfully the trash cans are bear proof, so he couldn’t get in, although he definitely has tried in the past as there were numerous teeth marks all over the lid of the can.

The bear tried his best to get into the trash can

But on to our hike for the day. Today was the day to revisit Mills Lake, the site of the 2006 photo I talked about earlier. The sky was cloudy, but not too overcast and it appeared to be clearing as we reached the Glacier Gorge trailhead around 7:15, passing a group of 10 wild turkeys on the way. The parking area there was already almost half full, as this was also the trailhead to many popular hikes in the area, including the hike to Bear Lake and Alberta Falls. Alberta Falls was on our way to Mills Lake, and by the time we reached it in less than a mile, we had already seen more people on the trail than we had hiking the rest of the week combined.

Alberta Falls

We saw a rabbit along the trail at one point, and he was very distinctive, with long back legs. We thought it might have been a jackrabbit, or even a snowshoe hare that hadn’t turned white for the winter yet. Thankfully it got less crowded the farther we went past the Falls, and we reached Mills Lake around 8:45 am. There wasn’t anyone else around, but unfortunately it was also very cloudy, misty and foggy. Whereas 5 years ago we had great views of the mountains around the lake, this time we could see nothing. But it was also different than last time because of the noise level. It was MUCH quieter this time around; not just because there were no people at the lake, but also because there wasn’t any rushing water heading down the mountains into the lake. 5 years ago we both remembered that the sound of that snow melt was amazingly loud, which you would expect so early in the summer.

Mills Lake, with Longs Peak just visible in the background

Sage tries to recreate the magic from 2006

After trying (unsuccessfully) to recreate Sage’s favorite photo of Mills Lake, we kept going on the trail past Mills to Jewel Lake, a pretty little pond that’s connected to Mills by a small inlet. We decided not to keep hiking in that direction, which would have led us up to Black Lake, and then Blue Lake, and instead we headed back the way we came and took another trail up to The Loch. As we left Mills Lake and took one last look at the beautiful lake, I turned to Sage and said, “What do you say, meet back here in 5 years?” She held out her hand and I shook it, so now if we ever get lost or separated, we now have a meet-up spot.

We had read that The Loch was another picturesque mountain lake, with high cliffs and mountains all around, and it sounded like it was right up our alley. Unfortunately this required another 500 feet of elevation to climb in only a mile of trail, and this steep trail really took it out of me. Whereas a few days earlier I thought I was getting acclimated, the trail to The Loch showed me just how high (and out of shape) I really was. But by 10 am we finally reached The Loch, and its elevation of 10,250 feet. Unfortunately the clouds and fog still hadn’t burned off, and the views were limited again, but we still found it beautiful and peaceful. We found a nice spot along the shores where we had lunch and took photos, and around 10:30 we headed back down the mountain to our car.

Cloudy day at The Loch

We passed dozens of more hikers heading up the trail, and we thanked ourselves for getting up early to avoid the crowds. The only incident of note on the way down was when we spotted an older couple hiking up, and the man was wearing a Virginia hat. I was going to bite my tongue, but Sage yelled out, “Go Hokies!” The guy laughed and said, “No, Cavaliers!” and we think that he thought we were SUPPORTING Virginia, but we just got the nickname wrong. But as we all know, those UVa fans aren’t too smart. We got to the car around 11:45. Final hiking stats: 8.2 miles, 1,500 feet of elevation gain.

On the way back to the house we stopped at a small market for some provisions to make dinner at home that night. After more afternoon reading (and feeling pretty wiped from the hiking), we grilled up some burgers and had a nice bottle of Carmenere. Around dusk we were watching TV when we heard a noise down by the road. We turned out all the lights and tried to see if the bear had come to knock over the trash can again, but we couldn’t see much in the dark gloaming. (Oh, so the trash can was down by the road because there was a notice in the house to please put it out on Thursdays. But they didn’t pick it up that day, which I’m assuming is because Monday was a holiday. So I figured I’d just leave it out for the next day.) Neither of us wanted to walk out to see what was going on, so we decided to wait for the morning to see what the damage was.

Day 7: Friday, September 9
With the chance of seeing Bill the Bear again, Sage woke up before 6 am to see if he was stopping by for a drink at the pond, and sure enough, he was there right on time. When Sage walked up he started to saunter up the driveway away from the house, but not before we got a real good look of his size once again. We left the house around 6:45, and on our way out we noticed the trash can at the end of the driveway was tipped over again. Ol’ Bill! Before heading back into the park for some short hikes, we stopped at the Donut Haus in Estes Park. We read about this place in Backpacker magazine, and sure enough, the donuts were fantastic.

After breakfast our first stop of the day was to head back to the Cub Lake trailhead in Moraine Park to see if we could see and hear some more elk bugling. We took the trail ¼ mile to Elk Rock (not an official name, just our label for the good viewpoint) and saw 3 elk very close – 1 bull, 1 cow, and 1 calf. The male bugled many times during our 30 minutes or so watching, and it was absolutely gorgeous watching the sun rise over the far mountains, the low fog over the meadow, and the elk feeding and bugling.

Low fog hangs over Moraine Park as the sun comes up

A small elk in Moraine Park

After the elk moved on their way we drove up the old Fall River Road, one of the oldest roads to cross the Rocky Mountains. The road is a narrow dirt road that winds its way up the valley to Alpine Ridge. Thankfully the park service made it a one-way road, but it’s actually pretty boring for the first 80% of it, without many views and nothing exciting to look at. There was one funny moment on the road however. There were a few mountain bikers using the road, and considering I could only drive about 10-15 MPH and the road was narrow, it wasn’t real easy to pass the bikers. One biker was moving pretty fast, but on a short straightaway I was able to go around him. Almost immediately after I passed, the road did a hairpin turn on a switchback. I took the turn a little too wide, and didn’t notice that there was a huge rut in the road that I ended up being on the wrong side of. Basically I had to come to a full stop and figure out how to get over this rut without hanging the car’s under carriage on the road. About 5 seconds later the mountain biker rode past me, laughing his butt off. After negotiating the rut I was able to get back on the road and passed him again shortly thereafter, and thankfully I didn’t slow down enough again for him to pass me a 2nd time.

The last couple of miles of the road rose above treeline and the views got a lot more interesting. We saw many elk on the sides of the mountains, and the clear skies made for much better views than the last day we were up on Alpine Ridge.

Alpine Ridge, from Fall River Rd.

After meeting back up with Trail Ridge Rd, we drove down to Poudre Lake and took the hike to The Crater. This trail and area is closed every spring and early summer as it’s a very popular area for bighorn sheep to go to have their calves. After the early summer it’s still supposed to be a good place to spot the bighorn sheep, so that was why we were hiking up. The trail was short but steep, and unfortunately we didn’t see any sheep, but the views were still incredible. The last ¼ mile is all above treeline, and Sage fittingly compared it to the Swiss Alps. We ended up climbing over 700 feet in about a mile, and even without the sheep it was well worth the hike.

Specimen Mountain, on the trail to The Crater

The Crater, and the Never Summer mountains in the background

Sage holds up some bighorn sheep fur, the only part of a sheep we saw on the trip

Around 10:30 we left Poudre Lake and drove back to Estes Park, stopping at some pullouts along the way. The weather really cleared up, so the views and photo opportunities were numerous along the ridge of the park. On the way out of the park Sage, who is always wildlife spotting, saw about 3 deer, and then close to the entrance station yelled out that she saw a coyote! I slowed down and we realized it wasn’t a coyote, but a fox, trotting slowly near the road. We stopped to watch him at work, as it looked like he was listening/hunting for small game in the long grass.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

After appreciating his elegance we drove back to the house around noon. This being our last day we ended up getting organizing and packing for the flight home, and then Sage napped while I read my book, now on to Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. (A page turner, but I was pretty disappointed by the end.) Around 5 we headed out to eat at the Rock Inn Mountain Tavern, and not just because that night they were featuring the music of “Hill Haggis, playing Dead favorites and other Rock Classics!” The food was good, the beer selection was outstanding, and they were showing 2 sporting events at the bar: European soccer and the Rugby World Cup. Yep, it was my kind of place.

After dinner we decided to take another ride down to Moraine Park to see if more elk were out. The road along the park was CRAZY with cars, and you could see why. The elk herd was even bigger than 2 nights prior – almost 50 were hanging out only about 30-40 yards from the road, including a few big bull elks. We spent the next hour or so watching the soap opera of the elk, with the main bull elk spending the entire time rounding up all his cows, bugling and running off other (smaller) bull elk, and chasing around his herd to keep them all together.

A bull elk is always busy during the rut

We got lots of great photos and videos, and when the sun went behind the mountains we headed back to the house. After finalizing our packing and organizing for the next day, we read and went to bed early, around 9:30, as we had an early wakeup call the next day for our flight home.

Day 8: Saturday, September 10
Nothing much exciting happened on the trip home. In order to make our flight out of Denver and to give us enough time to check in at the airport (it being the day before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, we were worried airport security would be really slow), we had to leave the house a little before 6 am. Unfortunately this meant that we were either too early to see Bill on our last morning, or it could be we scared him off with the noise from packing up the car. Our drive out of Estes and down to Denver was uneventful, and it turned out that security at Denver airport wasn’t crowded or slow at all. We had breakfast, the flight boarded/departed on-time, the flight was noisy with plenty of screaming babies but we read and ignored it, and landed on time in Boston.

Overall, we both had a FANTASTIC vacation. Thankfully the weather was (for the most part) good and we were able to do everything we wanted to do. We went on great hikes, saw awesome wildlife, and stayed at fantastic cabins/houses. Neither of us can wait to go back…and hopefully we won’t have to wait another 5 years to do it.

Note: I'm in the process of uploading some of our best elk bugling videos...I will post another blog within the next week with those.