Rocky Mountain National Park

Rocky Mountain National Park - April 18, 2003

Rocky Mountain National Park is about an hour to an hour and a half outside of Denver. Since it was close and it was free (well, sort of, because I do have a National Parks Pass but, little did I know that they don't charge entrance fees in the winter), I decided to visit.

I headed west on I-70 to US-40; then I would head North thru Winter Park. Little did I know that today mother nature had decided I needed more snow and decided to drop some in the Winter Park portion of the trip. A smarter and much more aware person would have turned around at that point and headed back to Denver and come up with something else to do. Because the roads were all slushy and the plows were out. Being stubborn, I decided NO, I was going to go onwards. Thru rain or sleet or snow (no, wait, that's the post office motto, I think).

But go on I did. Winter Park, for those who don't know, is a ski resort of some note. I had actually been there back in the winter of 1988; I took a ski class and had actually skied for my very first time. I have only been skiing twice, that day and a few days later at Breckinridge. Skiing, I have decided, is not something I excel at and really have no desire to improve in. Being a ski resort, as Winter Park is, it is in the mountains. I think that Colorado itself is one big mountain, and its just higher in some places than others. Winter Park is one of those "higher places". Being "higher", there were lots of twisting and turning roads. Makes driving an adventure.

But I got thru it unscathed and proceeded onto Rocky Mountain. It took about two hours or so to get there total. There are two entrances to the Park - the one I was using, which is in the southwest, and another in the northeast, off of I-25 and US-34. US-34 actually runs thru the Park and meets up with US-40; I encountered US-32 prior to reaching the entrance to the Park.

Rocky Mountain National Park Being winter and a National Park, the road in the park is not plowed very far. What this means is that you can get into the Park, but you cannot drive thru it. I could not enter at one entrance and exit at the other, which is what I had hoped to do. I could drive about 10 miles into the park before encountering snow on the road. The National Park Service begins cleaning out the snow, which can get to a depth of 20 feet or so, in April so they can open US-32 all the way thru in time for Memorial Day weekend.

What I was able to see was lots and lots of snow. And trees. And trees covered with snow. Snow everywhere. Supposedly on my drive into the park for the 10 miles, there was a pond or a lake; maybe there was, but it was apparently frozen and covered with....snow!

I didn't take many pictures because I had already trees and snow, and trees with snow. But it was still pretty.

I did like this picture, which is a tree with snow or a tree covered with snow. Take you pick of descriptions. The tree was obviously not that far from the road; I did not have snow shoes and was not going to slosh or hike or whatever you want to call it thru the snow, and get myself soaked.