If you take a look at all my blog posts about traveling, you’ll see that (with two exceptions out of the nine total destinations I’ve blogged about) I prefer to travel during the off season, especially in October and November. This has so many advantages: fewer lines into places; fewer crowds; fewer children about; cooler weather (depending on the hemisphere). It’s just–on the whole–so much better compared to traveling during the summer months. And so it was at Rocky Mountain National Park. It was still a little on the busy side, despite the fact it was a Wednesday afternoon right in the middle of October, but Amy, Aaron, and I all dreaded to think what the park would’ve been like, for example, on a Saturday immediately following Memorial Day.
To get to Rocky Mountain National Park from Boulder, we elected to take Highway 36 all the way there. It was really a very lovely drive. As I’ve mentioned before, Boulder is situated just east of the Front Range, the first range of mountains that travelers approach when navigating east to west along the 40th parallel. While this particular range is majestic in its own right, the majesty of these mountains only grows the deeper travelers head into the Rockies. The stretch of Highway 36 between Lyons and Estes Park is especially striking as the mountains continue to reach higher and higher. There are also some lovely homes to look at along this stretch, houses precariously (but probably sturdily) perched on stilts or carved right out of the steep grade of the arid and jagged terrain. The highway also takes you right past Estes Park Gateway (really just a glorified parking lot that has a giant, flat, erect stone with ESTES PARK carved into its surface using a serious font), which allows for stunning views of Mount Olympus, a wide mountain difficult to miss that reaches an elevation of 8,800 feet.
While in Estes Park, we stopped for lunch. On account of the heavy wind, we couldn’t dine outside (and we refused to dine inside), so we found a place called Ed’s Cantina and Grill that offered curb-side ordering from their menu of mainly pub style fare. We enjoyed our lunch in our van (windows cracked), and while I say enjoyed our lunch, it was more that we resigned ourselves to more mediocrity. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, our dining experiences in Colorado have yet to completely blow us out of the water (or blow us out of the mountains, as it were). There was nothing offensively bad about my bison burger and fried green beans at Ed’s, it was just middlingly and slightly frustratingly average. The food got the job done with minimal flare, zest, or imagination.
It was also in Estes Park where we saw worrying views of the Cameron Peak fire, huge plumes of smoke billowing in the nearby distance. It’s the largest of the four fires currently devastating northern Colorado (the fire just surpassed 200,000 acres at the time of my writing this), and it’s such a terrifying sight. So, please be safe, Coloradans. I do hope that these fires will be contained soon, and I hope that your lives will be disrupted as little as possible.
We eventually made our way to Rocky Mountain National Park, entering at the northeast entrance by the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center. As I mentioned earlier, we dreaded the thought of what the park would be like at its height during the summer months, as even on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of October, we still had about a 10-15 minute wait behind 20 or so cars before it was our turn to buy a pass and head in. The park, of course, is huge and sprawling, and it’s impossible to see everything in one day let alone an entire week. We were keen on hiking to a waterfall, so after some research, we discovered Alberta Falls, which is accessible via a short 1.6 mile hike (round trip). The hike to the falls is actually quite easy, as it’s mostly downhill. The hike back up, however, was actually a little challenging, as we still found ourselves out of breath on account of still not being fully climatized to the higher elevation. Despite the (really very minor) challenges of enduring the hike (and despite the fact that there were still a few too many other people on the trail and by the falls even though it was a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of October), I’d still highly recommend this hike, especially if you’re looking for an essentially easy hike to a modest waterfall. The falls itself aren’t nearly the widest, nor the tallest, nor the most interesting, but it will satisfy your waterfall fix easily and with minimal fuss. Here’s a video from my phone that I made of the falls; I’m filming from the very top of the falls, sitting on a ledge of rock that provided a satisfyingly close view of the flowing water.
Following our mini hike, we drove back towards the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center via the road we came in on to hike the falls, Bear Lake Road. Instead of heading out of the park right away, we drove northwest on Highway 36 towards Dear Mountain Trailhead and then looped back around to the southeast on Highway 34 past Sheep Lakes (tiny ponds that would easily go unnoticed) and Fall River Visitor Center. It was on this drive where we got to see a stately, lone elk on a hillside, and later on we saw a whole herd of elk grazing. Moments like these–seeing wildlife carrying on with their lives in such a picturesque region of the world–become really quite memorable. Obviously, I wouldn’t trade living in the city for the world, but there are times where the option of living in a state like Colorado near such gorgeous landscapes has quite an irresistible allure.
Following our time in the Rockies, we made our way back to Boulder and concluded our evening with a dinner at the Post Brewing Company. And, as you’ll expect me to remark after so many mediocre meals, it was fine. We enjoyed our cocktails with our whole fried chicken with sides of mashed potatoes and mac and cheese, but–again–it all was just discouragingly average. Not terrible, of course; just plain and meeting expectations.
We have two full days left in Boulder, so check back soon, as I’ll next be writing about our adventures hiking the Flatirons.