Epic Road Trip 2017 Day #3

This morning we slept in a little and woke up to another beautiful morning in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Katy made some coffee in her camp coffee press and we headed out to explore the park.  We started out by traveling to the Alpine Visitor Center via the Old Fall River Road.

The road was a one way, gravel path up about 4,000 feet.  There were lots of turn-outs that led to great views of the river as it traveled down the mountain.  A couple of times we stopped and got to take a short hike down to the river itself.  It was quite chilly next to the snow-melt fed river, sometimes 20 degrees cooler than the surrounding air.

As we made it to the top of the mountain, we saw a Yellow-Bellied Marmot scampering across the road.  Once we made it to the visitor's center, which is the highest in the National Park system at 11,796 feet, we had spectacular views of much of the park.  We had a quick lunch and I picked up a shirt at the gift shop.

We headed back down via the paved Trail Ridge Road, which was a bit quicker, but also with great views.  When we were done with our drive and hikes we came back to the campsite and took a nap while it rained.  After the rain stopped, we re-packed the truck after we had moved things around the past couple of days.  We went to a couple of new places in the park, looking for wildlife, but were pretty unsuccessful.  The vistas and the scenery were awesome, but there was a lack of wildlife.  We went to sheep lakes and did not see any bighorn sheep.  We did see a couple of deer and a few elk.

 We ate dinner at the Trailhead Restaurant near the Fall River Visitor Center.  Katy had the elk burger and I had the elk stew, which was delicious.

We went back to the campsite and had a relaxing evening with Katy knitting and me reading my book.  At 7:30 we went to the camp program, which was a history of Rocky Mountain National Park mixed in with a sing-along of some Rocky Mountain related songs.  Today's "What We Learned" was about someone known as the "National Parks Lady."  Mary Belle King Sherman was instrumental in the formation of the early National Park system and in Rocky Mountain National Park in particular.

For the day we traveled 77.7 miles and saw license plates from 39 states.