Before heading into Estes Park, we took one more hike in the park, our last on the East side of the continental divide. We selected the trail to Cub Lake as an easy day hike. It was a chance to stretch our legs while letting our muscles rest and recover from recent harder climbs.
The Cub Lake trail is a very popular route that meanders along the edge of beautiful meadows and verdant wetlands for 2.3 miles. The last half-mile of the trail climbs close to 500 feet in a hurry to the shores of the pretty little lake. Cub Lake is a small lake, its surface nearly covered in lily pads. The Fern Lake fire of 2012 did extensive damage to the surrounding trees and hillsides. I think this was probably a more picturesque lake prior to the forest fire.
The hike was a nice change of pace for us. We took our time, surveying the adjacent wetlands for moose while we walked. The largest member of the deer family would not make an appearance for us on this hike, though. We were lucky enough to spot several hummingbirds along the way.
After a brief lunch stop at Cub Lake, we returned to the trailhead via the same route we had taken out. We were looking forward to the comforts of town for a night. We stopped at a laundromat and did some much needed laundry on our way to the hotel.
We found a room at the Discovery Lodge, a short walk from the downtown business district. Our room was decorated in "log cabin" style furniture and wall hangings. From the outside hot tub we had a view of the front range of the Rocky Mountains. It was the perfect place to relax for a night.
For dinner, we stopped at Momma Rosa's in downtown Estes Park. They served delicious homemade italian entrees in a charmingly non-pretentious atmosphere. The patio seating afforded views of the Big Thompson River. While we were eating dinner, a storyteller was presenting some of the history of the area on the river walk next to us. A public sing along was held in the city park earlier in the evening. Everything about Estes Park screamed "charming, mountain town."
We hung around the hotel in the morning, soaking up every bit of modern convenience until check-out time. We grabbed breakfast at The Egg and I, which has quickly become one of my favorite breakfast joints. Caffeinated and fed, we were ready to make the drive over the continental divide to the west side of the park.
The Fall River Road is a one-way, dirt path that climbs above 11,000 feet to the Alpine Visitor Center. The drive had some white-knuckle moments. The road switchbacked up steep slopes with exposed drop-offs mere feet from our tires. The drive took us through a enchanted forest of fragrant pines and by babbling mountain streams.
The 11 mile drive took us over an hour. It was too beautiful to hurry through this stunning landscape. At the Alpine Visitor Center, the road intersected with Trail Ridge Road, the modern replacement for the dirt road, and the highest, maintained, paved roadway in the world.
We stopped in the visitor center and listened to a presentation on the animals of the alpine tundra, before beginning the drive down to Grand Lake. Heading west, the road was paved and much less scary to drive. In another hour, we were in Grand Lake.
Grand Lake was much smaller and less fancy than Estes Park. The town had a western feel to it. Three massive, interconnected lakes dominated the valley around Grand Lake. We drove to our campsite for the next three nights, the Green Ridge Campground. Located right on the shore of Lake Granby, this Arapaho Forest Service campground was mostly empty when we checked in.
The surrounding lakes appeared to offer a very different ecosystem than the mountains. We spotted several ospreys near the lake, including a couple that were nesting on telephone poles. While we were setting up camp we watched an osprey fly away from the lake with a big fish in its talons! Lake Granby was also home to a large flock of Wood Storks. These giant, white birds looked startlingly out of place in the mountains. Watching their graceful flight over the lake was a special treat for us. We also spotted a beaver, cruising around the river mouth of the North Fork of the Colorado River.
It was a quiet night of camping in the mostly empty Green Ridge Campground. In the morning we headed out for our first hike on the west side of the continental divide. We decided to take it easy, with our backpacking trip just a couple of days away, so we selected the Colorado River Trail. A 3.7 mile hike on this trail took us through tall pine trees and open marshy areas beneath the towering mass of the Never Summer Mountains to Lulu City.
Lulu City was the site of a mining town in the 19th century. Once home to 200 hardy pioneers, the city is now a ghost town, with no signs of human activity. Hiking next to the Colorado River here was fascinating to me. The impressive force of nature responsible for the canyons of Utah and Arizona that we had hiked near earlier in our trip was a gentle mountain stream as it wound its way out of the Rockies.
We ate our lunch on the shores of the quiet stream. Harmless, puffy, white clouds drifted by overhead. The mountain weather, so often full of unpredictable fury, was delightfully mild on this mid-summer day. On our hike back to the Jeep we spotted several piles of moose scat along the trail. We scanned the wetlands areas we passed carefully for moose while hiking, but to no avail.
While driving back to the campground, we noticed a large crowd of people gathered on the edge of the road. Mary pulled the Jeep over while I rolled down the window to ask what they were looking at. "Moose!" one of the men said in a hushed town. Mary quickly found a parking spot, and we pulled out the binoculars. A cow moose and a calf were quietly eating willlow leaves in a small marshy area near the road. The crowd snapped photos and whispered to one another in wonderment. The cow had dark black fur, with a fine silvery gloss to it. The calf was a lighter shade of brown. Its long ears flopped around trying to ward off bugs.
No sooner had we gotten back on the road, when we noticed another roadside gathering. We were delighted to find this crowd had spotted a bull moose. Its antlers looked soft and fuzzy. Truly a gentle giant, the bull moose was eating his way through a thicket less than 30 feet from the road. I couldn't help but marvel at the luck of spotting three moose within a few minutes of driving. We had once taken a 70 mile, three-hour drive around northern Vermont looking for moose, with no success! I guess today was make-up for previous efforts.
The west side of Rocky Mountain National Park appears to have a lot less people, and more wildlife than the east. We're looking forward to exploring this new terrain more in the days to follow.
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