Rocky Mountain High - STR-2021-10

Friday, 25 June

The rest of the story about today’s adventures.

It all started with a simple relocation from Casper, WY to Kremmling, CO, picked because the reviews on the campground were favorable and we could get a reservation on a Friday night. 284 miles, about 4 hours 40 minutes according to Google. With it raining in the morning, rain forecast for most of the day in Casper and along our planned journey, we thought today was just going to be a drive day.

But Sprinty had other ideas. And sometimes Sprinty is in charge. We stopped along the side of the road in Walden, CO for lunch. We just pulled over to the curb on the Main Street through town, and made lunch. Up until now, the plan for the day was to continue to Kremmling, CO, check in at the campground, then go to the Kawuneeche Visitor Center (located just outside the west entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park), then get on-line on ReserveAmerica at 5pm to try and secure a timed entry permit for tomorrow.

Our motivation for tacking on 90+ minutes of driving was that we could get information from the park rangers to better plan a day in Rocky Mountain National Park. If we were able to get a timed entry ticket.

Rocky Mountain National Park is one of several national parks which have implemented timed entry tickets due to increased enthusiasm to visit national parks. The normal timed entry tickets were sold out months ago, but the National Park Service releases a batch for the next day at 5PM. A check last night in Casper found the general tickets were still available at 7PM, while the Bear Lake tickets were gone.

Kremmling is located about 48 minutes west of the west entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. Readers may recall the chance encounter we had at a scenic overlook while exploring Little River Canyon in eastern Alabama back in May where we met a couple from Colorado. She highly recommended the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park over the east side (Estes Park entrance), which we put in our notes.

While eating lunch in Walden, CO, Sprinty recommended an improvement to the plan for the day. He recommended going to the visitor center first, then the campground, which would save almost 50 minutes of driving (the day had already expanded to a 6 hour drive day by adding in the visitor center). So he altered course slightly, taking us through the Arapaho National Forest. Parts were very scenic, however the wildfire damage though was striking.

We arrived at the visitor center about 1:45PM. Darrell's first question to the park ranger was to seek clarification on the timed entry process. The ranger confirmed that to enter the park from either end between 9AM and 3PM required a timed entry permit (5AM to 9 PM for the Bear Lake area tickets). Entry before 9AM or after 3PM did not require a permit.

Hmmm. The Kawuneeche Visitor Center was located all of 250 meters outside the entrance station. A quick check found the rain was going to be drizzle at most. And sunset was about 8:30PM. So we called the campground to confirm a late arrival. By now it was 2:20PM.

We, along with several others, hung out in the visitor center parking lot until 3PM. And off we went to explore Rocky Mountain National Park.

Well, part of it. The ranger had recommended a visit to the Alpine Visitor Center, and to go at least to the Forest Canyon pullout to take in the alpine meadows area of the Park. She also recommended several hikes ranging from easy to more challenging depending on time. And explained what was damaged and closed from the wildfire.

We planned in advance to stop at all pullouts on the right side going up, and all the ones on the right coming back down.

Soon after stopping at Fairview Curve, we came upon stopped cars. At first we feared an accident. It was just an animal jam. Five elk decided to cross the road. Not only were people stopped for the elk in the road, but about half were out of their cars taking pictures. We did our pictures from the safety and comfort of Sprinty.

We stopped at Milner Pass, where the park road crosses the Continental Divide at 10,759 feet of elevation.

When we got to Alpine Visitor Center at an elevation of 11,796, we decided to stop even though it was a left entrance because the visitor center closed at 4:30 and we weren't sure what time we would be coming back by. We viewed the exhibits, learned about life above 11,000 feet. We learned that Trail Ridge Road, the road that we had been driving on, is the highest continuous paved road in North America, reaching 12,183 feet. The ranger at the visitor center said that they were expected snow tomorrow.

We saw people hiking up a trail to the top of the mountain, so we hiked up as well. The elevation at the top was 12,010 feet, and over 200 stairs on the trail. The thin air had us both hugging and puffing. As well as everyone else.

We continued on, stopping at pullouts, walking out to the overlook at Forest Canyon, and stopping at Rainbow Curve.

There it was obvious the road was descending and since we could not explore The Bear Lake are this trip, we decided to turn around vice going down only to have to come back up again.

We then headed for the west exit and Kremmling for our campsite for the night. By the time we got to the campsite, Sprinty had logged 390 miles of driving in 8.5 hours. And handled the climb up to 12,183 feet like a champ. Not a normal travel day for Sprinty and his humans. But absolutely worth the stretch. Simply awesome. And stoked our appetite to return to Rocky National Park another time.