Built in the 1920's by "inmates and hired laborers," this gravel road used to be the only way into this national park. Steep grades, narrow lanes, and hairpin curves are still a challenge as it ascends over 3,000 feet.
In 1932, the paved Trail Ridge Road was built, and that has been the main route for motorists ever since. So Old Fall River Road is now a one-way scenic drive that takes visitors to some lesser known sights in the park. For example, our first stop of the day was at the Alluvial Fan. That's our new vocabulary word of the day: alluvial fan - a triangular shaped deposit of water-transported material. In 1982 the dam broke at Lawn Lake, high up on the mountain. The wall of water that escaped from the lake flooded down this mountainside and formed this "alluvial fan" of rocks and waterfall behind.
Next stop is the Chasm Falls. We parked in the wrong place, and had to climb over a field of boulders to get a view of the waterfall. We were pretty impressed with the scrambling skills of the rest of the people already at the falls. Then we realized that a different parking lot led to a flat easy path to the falls. We're not so impressed with those other folks any more.
It's a beautiful blue sky day, and we are loving the mountain views along Old Fall River Road.
We had vowed that this is a rest day, but Mark had read good things about the hike that started at the Mount Chapin Trail head. So of course we parked the car along the narrow road, and headed up . . . and up . . . and up the trail.
At least we had enough sense not to hike all the way to the summit. We reached a nice fall foliage view from a plateau, then turned around and headed back to the car.
Besides the plants turning red, we see evidence that the animals recognize the changing season. They're gathering food for the long winter ahead. We're not sure what this ground squirrel was clutching, but it kept his attention while we took several pictures.
Old Fall River Road is an eleven-mile drive that stretches to the middle of Rocky Mountain National Park, and it ends at the visitor center at the top of the park. This is the view from the Alpine Visitor Center. At 11,796 foot in elevation, it's the highest national park visitor center in all of the U.S. parks.
We explored the Alpine Center, and then we took the hike right outside to this high point. As often happens here on top of the mountains, the wind is blowing 40 mph and it is cold!
But we braved the wind and the cold and got the obligatory picture at the 12,006 feet elevation marker. As you can see, Denisa is wearing two jackets and her gloves to make this hike.
We had seen this scenery when we drove the motor home over this pass two days ago. We are SO glad that day wasn't as blustery as today. It would have been especially challenging driving our tall motor home over this pass with these 40 mph winds.
On the trip with the motor home we couldn't stop in at the scenic viewpoints. So today's drive in the car allowed for more stopping and taking in the views. But with stiff winds and rain on the horizon, we didn't stop long.
As we drove to lower elevations on the east side of the park, we joined the crowds of people that were already lining the road at the meadows. As we look across the meadow, we can see the herds of elk that are the stars of the rut season each fall.
This group of elk cows are being guarded by the bull with the big antlers. He's lounging in the back right now, but you can be sure that he will jump into action if another male approached his harem.
As we look across the meadow, we can see that many of the park visitors have left their cars for closer views of the elk herds.
The elks weren't very active this afternoon, so we had plenty of time to do some bird-watching too. We've seen many of these birds that we have nicknamed "tuxedo birds" because of their neat black-and-white breast feathers.
But now we know that this is a magpie. We got a great look at their back feathers, to see that they aren't just black and white.
In fact, they have beautiful iridescent blue and green tail feathers. This guy hopped right in front of Denisa, just begging her to take a picture of his feathered finery.
Our next stop was to Sprague Lake. We've been to three different visitor centers within Rocky Mountain National Park, and they are all advising this as the best place to see a moose on the east side of the park. We showed up at prime moose-watching time, and walked the entire loop around the lake. We were there just as the sun was sinking in the sky. The shadows on the lake grass pictured a couple of hikers (that are supposed to be taking the "day off"), holding hands while they waited on that moose.
We got pretty excited when the guys with the huge cameras showed up. They had zoom lenses that were two feet long, and we assumed they knew where the best wildlife sightings would be. A large bull moose had shown up at this time for the last two nights, and the crowd of watchers grew larger as the evening progressed. But the moose must have forgotten his appointment at Sprague Lake. We stayed until almost sunset with no sign of him.
So we headed home in the dark for the second night in a row. Even though this was our "day off," we managed to still hike over six miles, and we were in the park for close to twelve hours. We've got to quit staying out so late! But it's hard not to take advantage of every minute while we get to wander God's wonders here in Rocky Mountain National Park.
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