We made it safely to Estes Park, beautiful drive along the Big Thompson River, and checked into Spruce Lake RV park….it is a great little park very close to one of the RMNP entrances. After the stressful week, we hit up Bird and Jim a fabulous restaurant for an amazing burger and tuna poke bowl. Excellent food and great vibe….Did some sightseeing in town (The Stanley Hotel which inspired The Shining!) was pretty cool and the casual elk scene was wild.
RMNP’s timed entry made it a bit difficult to get to the hikes we wanted to, but we took advantage of a long day by taking both the Old Fall River Road and the Trail Ridge Road. The Old Fall River Road is mostly gravel with tight turns, big drop-offs and huge elevation gains. It ends basically at the highest point in the park, the Alpine Visitor Center at almost 12k feet and there’s a great staircase which takes you to just above that…amazing, beautiful views. If Clifford had any residual issues from the LS incident, we could have had serious trouble on that old road…but we made it! It’s a beautiful park with very diverse terrain….
