Megan’s Take
Today was our first day in Rocky Mountain National Park. I was originally worried about a rainy forecast, but it ended up being a really pretty day – slightly cool with a high in the 60s but mostly sunny. We got to the park around 7:30 am, and while we had plenty of company from other visitors on Trail Ridge Road, it was a good start to the morning. We did a short 0.5 mile hike at Hidden Valley, which might have been my highlight.
It’s basically an easy walk through a subalpine meadow that follows a small river as it winds through the picnic area. What I liked was that we had the trail almost to ourselves. The temperature was cool but refreshing, and the kids were really excited and enthusiastic about it.
We also did the Alpine Tundra Community trail (1.2 miles) and a 0.6 mile overlook trail at the visitor center. These are some of my favorite trails in that the scenery is such a stark contrast from other forest/mountain habitat.
The Alpine tundra consists of rocks, mosses, and very short/small flowers and grasses. It is VERY windy, though, and quite chilly. I dressed Emilia, Emmett, and myself in winter gear, so we were warm, except for our faces. Emmett was basically my hiking buddy for these trails and spent quite a bit of time whining and crying about the wind blowing on his face and fussing that his legs were tired. I encouraged him to walk, though, because this alternated with him climbing up and down rock hills/boulders like a mountaineer. We weren’t ready to throw him in a hiking carrier, because he clearly still had energy.
After those trails, it became clear that Emmett had what appeared to be an eye infection.
That certainly could have been why he was fussier than usual today, which I had chalked up to the wind and altitude changes. His eye seemed slightly puffy this morning, but I didn’t think much of it. By lunchtime, it was red, watery, and more puffy. We were driving down the west side of Trail Ridge Road when I had signal to call Emmett’s pediatrician. They would not call in a prescription for him, because they wanted to make sure he didn’t have an ear infection. So we turned around and drove 1.5 hours back to Estes Park, which was our best option for an urgent care. This morning, Emmett’s face had bumped into Phil’s hand on a trail, and Emmett cried about it. So I was worried about a scratched eye vs. ear infection vs. eye infection. Fortunately, the urgent care clinic got us in to be seen right away, and the nurse practitioner was really good with us. Emmett’s ears were clear, and she didn’t see any corneal abrasions with the disclosing solution. We’re assuming it’s a bacterial infection, although she mentioned it could be from a virus that he’ll have to work through. In any case, we got him a prescription for antibiotic eye drops to cover our bases, and hopefully that’ll help. We’re fortunate that it was a simple medical issue and that we haven’t had any other medical issues (other than lice) during this trip, but that was stressful dealing with away from home.
The rest of the evening was dinner out and a campfire.
The kids (i.e., Emilia) have been begging Phil for a campfire and to roast s’mores. It’s been so hot almost all of our trip that we haven’t had any campfires. Tonight was the coolest evening we’ve had since the Great Sand Dunes at the beginning of our trip (when we were too busy battling lice to care about campfires). Phil gave in and made a campfire so that he could check it off the bucket list. What is hilarious is that once he had bought the firewood and made the fire, I asked Emilia if she wanted a roasting stick for her marshmallows, and she said no – that she just wanted to eat the chocolate, Graham crackers, and marshmallows separately and “not melty.” She ended up changing her mind and wanted to try roasting the marshmallows, but I suspect she just likes the experience of us all sitting together around the fire while she eats endless treats, regardless of whether they’re warm and toasty or not.
Phil’s Take
The best part of the Hidden Valley trail was the little stream that ran through it. I’m always amazed at how clear mountain water is.
The next stop we made, before the hike Megan mentioned, was the Many Parks Curve, where we all got out to see the sights. This was the first stop where I could get a decent panorama, though there’s a lot of lens flare.
It’s also the first place where the kids started climbing. Emmett is definitely getting more confident in his climbing and independence.
The first alpine stop was the Forest Canyon Overlook, where you get amazing shots of the scenery I find unique to this place. I was able to get a great panorama here
and a shot of a marmot, thought with lots of zoom and patience.
Our next stop was Rock Cut and the Tundra Communities Trail, which was my highlight of the day. It offers awesome views,
wildflowers of all kinds,
interpretive signs along the way that explain some cool stuff about this hostile place, and even another marmot. This one was much closer than the last and was chewing on the wooden fences they built to keep people out of the tundra.
It is amazing to me just how tiny some of the flowers are. I spotted a little bit of purple, barely seen here.
It looks as beautiful as big flowers with 20-something times magnification.
We were very fortunate to catch this at a time with all of the flower blooms.
Next stop was the Lava Cliffs, which still had a significant amount of snow. We didn’t know it until we pulled out of the parking area there, but there was snow close enough that the kids could have touched it, which was a request ever since they first saw snow this morning.
The final stop before the Visitor Center was the Gore Range overlook. It was extremely windy here, but the views were great. This one features some small ponds in front of the namesake mountain range.
The visitor center was busy, but there was plenty of parking. We got the kids each a Junior Ranger cup that had a carabiner for a handle and a Rocky Mountain National Park Junior Ranger ornament. We were more generous than usual since this is the last national park we’re going to see on this trip.
After our purchase, we hiked the trail from the parking lot. Emilia was entertained with me counting the steps, 223 in total.
The summit of this trail, at 12005 feet, offers a view to the northeast that’s far enough from the Tundra Communities Trail to be unique.
On our way back down, there was a large bit of rock that was great for climbing. Both children displayed their new found love for climbing by spending the next several minutes covering every inch of it we’d let them cover.
The last stop we had with a view was the Medicine Bow Curve, where I shot this panorama. It’s a unique view of the valley to the north not seen in any of the stops so far.
Our intention was to head toward the lower parts of the west end of the park for some hiking. We had missed that snow earlier at the Lava Cliffs and were thinking it would be Emmett’s nap time when we came back through, so we found some snow for the kids to touch on our way down.
Shortly after this picture was taken, Emmett decided to taste some of the snow before I could manage to stop him. The look on his face when he discovered what dirty snow tasted like was funny.
There were quite a few more picures we had taken on this part of the road that were quite terrible. The combination between the way light was hitting the truck and Megan wearing a bright pink coat made for pictures with tons of reflecction that the AI editing software couldn’t do much to improve without mangling the image significantly. I deleted those images in hopes that our next trip through will either be at a different time of day or with different apparel or photo taking skills that will give us better shots.We also forgot to get a pic of the sign on the way in and out given our need to get Emmett to the urgent care. Oh well, pictures for another day.
Here’s the gallery of the pictures we kept from today.
