Rocky Mountain National Park - June 15 & 16, 2019
We picked up our Red Tail Lodge van from VanDOit on June 13th (YAY!) and made it back home on June 14th in time to pick up Right Buddy’s brother from the airport. He usually comes to Colorado in the winter to go skiing, never in the summer. So we gave him the full treatment by taking him up to Rocky Mountain National Park both Saturday and Sunday. It was also a good way to break in the van by taking it up into the mountains to see how it handles the steep grade.
On Saturday, we took the back way into the park, past the historic Stanley Hotel where the movie The Shining was shot. On the way to Sprague Lake, we naturally pulled over when we spotted a crowd gathered on the side of the road. Yup, two elk were there with their antlers covered in velvet. It looked like rain, but we walked the short trail around Sprague Lake anyway. It lightly rained on us, then cleared up, so the walk was beautiful despite the weather.
From Sprague Lake we drove all the way up Trail Ridge Road to the Alpine Visitors Center. The temperature dropped and soon we were driving in sleet, then snow. Left Buddy (LB) took it slow as Red Tail Lodge has a large wind profile and you can feel it when driving her, but she handled fine in the snow along with the steep grade. On the way back down, we stopped at the Rock Cut Overlook. Right Buddy (RB) likes to stop there because she almost always sees yellow-bellied marmot and pika among the rocks near the road. Sure enough, RB’s brother got to experience seeing both marmot and pika.
There is a short alpine trail leading up from Rock Cut called Tundra Communities (also known as the Roger Toll Memorial) and RB’s brother seemed up for the challenge. He had just flown in from sea level the day before and Rock Cut is over 12,000 feet above sea level. As he started up the incline, the altitude sickness started setting in. Despite that, he did manage to finish the short trail. It was also a challenge for RB as well, not due to altitude sickness, but due to recovering from foot surgery just a little over two weeks prior. She just started wearing a real shoe on Friday. The trail around Sprague Lake was flat and didn’t bother her at all, but the Tundra Communities trail had a little incline to it and started out with a little slippery snow just to make it more interesting. All she could think of was how she was going to explain to her podiatrist about getting hurt while hiking in the snow in the mountains. But she took it slow and was fine.
On Sunday, we decided we were up for something a little more difficult and went on a long hike to Ouzel Falls at the Wild Basin entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. Since RB’s foot seemed to handle the couple of miles we hiked on Saturday, she felt she could start out hiking with LB and her brother and turn around when she felt her foot had enough. The Ouzel Falls trail is listed as a 5.4 miles round trip with a 950 foot elevation gain.
The trailhead was down a dirt road. Red Tail Lodge had no trouble getting down the well-maintained dry dirt road. We probably wouldn’t want to take her down deeply rutted or muddy dirt roads since we opted for the factory tires on our van. The parking lot at the trailhead was full. However, there were several park rangers on walkie talkies directing vehicles to the available parking spots at several picnics areas along the dirt road leading to the trailhead. They parked us at a nice small picnic area along the creek with just a couple of other vehicles. The bad news was that it added another mile or so to our hike to walk down the road to the trailhead.
The Ouzel Falls trail followed the North St. Vrain Creek which was just gushing with the spring snow melt. Rangers and signs were warning of the danger of the powerful creek. The hike was beautiful, passing Copeland Falls and Calypso Cascades before reaching Ouzel Falls. Just past Calypso Cascades, a couple of hikers coming the other direction gave us a tip of a moose and her calf in the trees up ahead. A big thanks goes to those helpful hikers because we did spot the moose, but the trees were too dense to get a good picture or video of them.
RB thought about turning around at Calypso Cascades, but her foot was still feeling OK and Ouzel Falls was not much further. However, the trail was mostly uphill all the way to Ouzel Falls and when we started back downhill, RB’s foot started to hurt. She just had to suck it up and make it back since she was out of options at this point. Her brother wasn’t doing much better. He was hiking with his laptop backpack which had no waist belt, so his shoulders were starting to bother him. Don’t ask us why we didn’t loan him a real backpack. So he went on ahead back to the trailhead to reduce the time of the backpack on his shoulders while RB took it slow to be careful where she placed her feet on the rocky trail on the descent. Despite the pain, we all had a great time and a couple of ibuprofen, an ice pack and elevating some feet cured RB’s and her brother’s discomfort.
Check out our related video: Rocky Mountain National Park June 15 & 16, 2019
(RB)