We crossed into Utah!

We left Meadows campground and made the steep descent out of Rabbit Ear Pass and into the town of Steamboat Springs. We made a Walmart stop for groceries--our first of this trip. Then we drove through the sagebrush-covered hills of western Colorado fighting an 8-mile-per-hour head wind that brought our gas mileage down to 13.6 miles per gallon. It was a three-hour trip that saw signs like "no gas for 67 miles." Heck, it should have said, "no people for 67 miles." We drove right past the Dinosaur National Monument because we toured there in 2019. But we knew we were in dinosaur country when we stopped for lunch on the Stegosaurus Parkway in Dinosaur, Colorado. We ordered a half-pound Slopper at a little cafe at the corner of Brontosaurus Street and Ceratosaurus Avenue. 

Then we crossed the Utah border--our fourth state on this two-month adventure.

We were on our way to our full hook-up site near Jennings, Utah. There was only a post office and a visitor center in this tiny town. But more importantly, our campground had a laundromat. When we were traveling full-time in our motor home, we had our own washer and dryer on board. But now in our tiny trailer, we get to "experience" laundromats. We have scheduled stays in campgrounds with laundromats every week or so on this trip, to wash our dirty laundry.

After putting away all that laundry, we were on the road the next morning--driving deeper into Utah. After 123 miles, we arrived at Lodgepole--a National Forest Campground. The tall trees once again made our little trailer look even smaller. 

We have to give a shout-out to the campground manager, Crystal. She saw us coming, and even met us to offer information about loading up water. The drought has resulted in this campground turning off the bathrooms and water spigots during the week. But she let us know that both were available to us today. Whew! With our smaller tanks and lighter-weight trailer, we were trying to not travel with water on board. She also offered us our choice of several sites, instead of the one we reserved on-line. She went above and beyond what we had found at most campgrounds.

We had little shade at our camp site, but the weather was nicely cool at this high elevation. At 7,200 feet, we had highs in the 70s, and lows in the 40s. This was another good test of our solar system and our lithium battery as we settled in for a three-day stay near Salt Lake City with no hook-ups. On our first day, our batteries were 100% charged after a good sunny day. We were also 100% glad that things were still going well as we crossed into Utah.

Should we hike the Wyoming Loop or Rabbit Ears Trail?

We were saying good-bye to Ranger Lakes Campground after four nights at State Forest State Park. We got up in time to hike one more circle around the lakes before we headed to our next destination. We have enjoyed our six days on highway 14, but we found that there are no gas stations, no cell phone signal, and no groceries along this 99-mile stretch of road. So we were almost on empty when we pulled into Walden, Colorado, for gasoline and lunch. Then we were on our way to our next camp site at Meadows Campground in the national forest.

The drive included going down one mountain, through the high desert around Walden, and then back up to Rabbit Ears pass at 9,426 feet. This is one of the most easily recognizable passes in Colorado. An unusual two-ear-shaped rock formation can be seen from the highway, and Denisa tried to take a picture of it as we drove by.

Meadows Campground is a forest service campground. We were glad to get the half-price senior rate, because $26 was too much to pay for a spot in the woods with no hook-ups. Granted, it's a beautiful place with tall trees that absolutely made our trailer look tiny.

Our welcome into the campground was a sign warning us of bear activity in the area. One of our neighbors told us she saw the bear from her trailer last night, and had bear tracks next to her van this morning.

The dumpsters in the campground had the usual bear bars that hold the tops down securely. That keeps most bears out of the trash. But we had never seen dumpsters with padlocks with four-digit codes needed to open them. We guess this bear was pretty good at opening dumpsters, but hadn't yet learned how to open a padlock.

We found a hike leading from our campground loop, and took a little hike with our new neighbor. That gave us a couple more miles of exercise before we called it a day. The trees in this area were so tall, and you can barely see Denisa standing beside one in the picture below.

But the most exciting part of our new campground with all its tall trees, was that we were once again in AT&T cell phone service area. We got to send texts and got FaceTime calls from both our sons. Yay!

We were at 9,300 feet in elevation, so it was a delightfully cool 46 degrees at night, with daytime highs in the mid-70s. That's our kind of July weather! There was also great hiking in the Routt National Forest that surrounded us. We found three different hikes that interested us, and our hardest chore was picking just one. Should we do the Wyoming Loop (which is longer but we love loop hikes), or Rabbit Ears trail (which goes to that cool rock formation we could see from the highway)? We finally decided on the Wyoming Loop Trail, mostly because we had hiked Rabbit Ears 6 years ago. We were on the trail by 8:00 the next morning.

You will probably get tired of pictures of wildflowers, but we can't remember seeing more abundant flowers anywhere! 

This was a 6.8 mile loop with only 790 feet in elevation gain. That's a pretty easy hike by our usual standards. We soon had views of Dumont Lake. The picnic tables overlooking the lake were almost hidden by the wildflowers. Mark was sitting on the table, because the benches were covered with flowers.

As we gained elevation, the flowers didn't stop. We were soon high above Dumont Lake.

All these wildflower pictures were taken miles apart. It was like strolling through a never-ending botanical garden on steroids.

We were definitely wandering through God's wonders on this hike! We decided that we made a good choice on this hike, even though it's not the most popular trail. We only saw a a handful of other hikers. One of them was a young woman on her ninth day of hiking the "Colorado Trail"--a 567 mile hike between Denver and Durango which passes through some of the best of the Rocky Mountains. We didn't take her picture, but we did take more pictures of the wildflowers she got to enjoy today.

This trail is also part of the Continental Divide trail, and we saw some of the trail identifiers on the trees.

We met Huck, who was hiking the entire Continental Divide Trail. He was in a great mood, and greeted us cheerfully. When we asked what mile of the trail he was on, he thought a while and then said, "about 14 . . . " With such a low number of miles, we thought he had just started. Then he finished his statement, "about 14 HUNDRED miles." He started this trail in May in Mexico, so he had been on the trail for over two months. 

The Continental Divide Trail stretches from Mexico to Canada and is almost 3,000 miles in length. Later, we would see this sign in town. It looks like Huck was about half-way on his journey, as he was 1,436 mile from Mexico and 1,441 from Canada.

To put that in perspective, if you walked 20 miles every day at high altitude going up and down mountains, it would take you 5.5 months to complete the trail. We think people that hike these long trails are amazing, but it isn't anything we want to do ourselves. Huck waved and was back on the trail just like that. Did we mention that the wildflowers were beautiful?

We hit the top of the Wyoming Loop after about 4.8 miles, and we were heading back down towards the pickup. We were still taking pictures of some beautiful wildflowers that looked like they came out of a florist shop.

When we had hiked 6.5 miles, we got the wild idea that we could do our second choice hike too. If you look at the digital map on the All-trails app, we were at 10,000 feet in elevation at that time. If we could stay at that elevation and hike across the mountain for a mile, we could hit the trail leading up to the unique rock formation known as Rabbit Ears. So after hiking 6.4 miles, we veered off of the loop trail in search of the Rabbit Ears Trail. Our All trails app beeped, and asked "Wrong turn? Looks like you've taken a detour from your planned route." Well yes, we had.

We thought we could follow the topographical map to keep from going up and then down in elevation. But that map didn't know what was in that mile in front of us. Our detour started in a beautiful meadow, where it was easy to hike a consistent elevation.

But then we headed into the forest, where we had to traverse over fallen logs, and around big trees. There was some snow, but we couldn't let that get in our way.

When life gives you snow, make snow angels.

But the hardest section was through a bog filled with pussy willows that were so thick we couldn't see our feet or even each other. We were trying to keep our feet dry as we dodged the water through the willows. Was this a good idea?

We were glad to finally find the second trail after a mile of slogging through all kinds of obstacles. We were not glad to find that we had just joined to the Rabbit Ears trail at the point that it turned into a crazy steep trail. Now we remembered the trail description, "pleasant until the last mile when it turns sharply uphill." It was about this time that we met a jeep on the trail. What?!? Riding up this section feels like they were cheating. 

It was the kind of up-hill hiking where we made ourselves go 100 steps before we had to stop and catch our breath. We must be getting older, because it was so steep we often made it only 60 steps. Granted, we were at 10,000 feet in elevation and that made it even harder.

But we did prevail, and we have pictures to prove that we made it to the top of Rabbit Ears. Here we are, standing in front of one of the ears.

There was only one other couple at the top, and we traded taking pictures for each other.

The top of Rabbit Ears was 10,589 feet, and we worked hard for every one of those feet.  

After that tough hiking, it's a rough rock scramble to earn the right to stand between the two ears at the top of the mountain. Here's the side view . . .

and the wide view to give you more of a feel for how big things are at the top of the mountain.

It was crazy that this rock was so big and so noticeable from far away,  but we couldn't see it most of this hike because we were right under it. It wasn't until we were over a mile back down the trail that we could look back and see those ears again.

And of course, on this hike, we would have to include a picture with wildflowers in the foreground, and the ears in the background.

We are sorry to keep including so many pictures of wildflowers. But they were the most amazing display we have seen, and they were like this throughout the entire hike!

Okay, so we're not sorry for including so many wildflower pictures. But we have to say that we didn't carry as much water as we should have for this unexpectedly long hike. So we were sipping instead of gulping water on the trip back down the mountain.

By the time we got back to the pickup, we had hiked a total of 11.5 miles with an elevation gain of 1,499 feet. Whew! The other stats for the day included: we spent 6 hours and 38 minutes on the trail, we burned 2,597 calories, and we saw 474,318,674 wildflowers.  When you have to decide between the Wyoming Loop hike or the Rabbit Ears hike, and you have that much beauty around you, we recommend that you take both!

Finding Bull Moose and Ruby Jewel Lake

We set the alarm for 5:45 this morning, because we were on a mission to find the morning moose crowd. It was very quiet in the campground when we pulled out. We stopped first at the visitor center two miles away because the ranger had told us that moose were often seen there early in the morning—but not this morning. Then we headed to the northern section of State Forest State Park. All the roads in this section are dirt, and this is home to the moose overlook where we saw the cow moose yesterday. We drove County Road 41 when the sun was still very low in the sky, scanning the willow-filled creek bottoms that are favorites for the moose. But it was in a forested area that Mark yelled, “Moose!”

Since no one else was out on the road this early, Mark backed up the pickup and headed down the little gravel spur road. Sure enough, two bull moose were standing near the end of that road.

Interestingly enough, this was the dirt road that leads to the “Dancing Moose Yurt.” We didn’t see any dancing this morning, but we did watch as the two bulls ambled off the road towards the yurt.

They paused to nibble one of their favorite snacks--fresh tender willow branches.

They moved into the shadows of the forest, making it harder to take good pictures. But that didn’t keep us from trying.

While we were concentrating on those two big boys, Denisa noticed something lurking in the shadows on the other side of the road.

It was a third bull moose, watching us from the distance.

The first two bulls kept looking his way, as if encouraging him to join them.

He finally ambled across the road too.

When he was in front of the gate that leads to the yurt, we got a good picture of just how long a moose’s legs are. Often they are in tall grass or in the water so you can’t see their entire legs. 

But this morning we could see all of those long legs.

The three guys conferred in the shadows, and we continued taking pictures. 

Moose bulls lose their antlers every winter, and then grow them back in the spring and summer. From the size of the racks they have grown so far this year, we would guess that this is the oldest and wisest of this trio.

This guy seems to be the middle man, and we’re guessing he’s the trouble maker of the group.

The third moose from the shadows has the smallest antlers, so we’ll call him the baby brother of this trio.

Moose bulls hang out together this time of the year. But come fall, they will be developing seniority as they fight for the ladies during the moose rut season.

Honestly, we would have probably sat there all day, watching these three bulls, because this was such a special sighting. But they got tired of us before we got tired of them. The two youngest decided it was time to move out of sight into the thick forest.

The old guy gave us one more sideways pose before he followed them and went out of sight.

What a fun find that was this early morning! It was worth setting that early alarm! We also stopped by the moose viewing platform, but didn’t find any moose hanging out where they were supposed to be.

Now it was time to head out for our hike for today to Ruby Jewel Lake. The trail head was five miles down rutted dirt roads. The first two miles were rated tolerable for two-wheel-drive vehicles. Then the road turned into a four-wheel-drive road and it got bad in a hurry. We made it a mile down that road before we decided it was time to park the pickup and started walking around 8:00.

While the state park was busier during the weekend, we didn’t see anyone out on this Monday morning. We did find one other vehicle parked a little further down the road as the road got worse. Remember, this was a picture of the road--not the trail.

We were shocked to find a little Mazda SUV parked a full mile and half down that awful road! We also noted the big rocks, and a sizable oil stain on the gravel road. It looks like someone scraped off their oil pan trying to get up this road!

We didn't see any other hikers. Who would be crazy enough to go up this steep road anyway? How about a father and son riding their dirt bikes up the road. We talked to them on their way down, and they said it was hard controlling a bike on such a steep road filled with loose rock. They were working even harder than us, as they tried to control their bikes on such a rotten road.

After that 2.2-mile slog up-hill through the trees on a dusty road, we finally got to the Ruby Jewel Lake trailhead. The lake is only 1.5 miles away now. It sure would have been nice to start this hike at the trail head!

Immediately, this turned into a pleasant hike instead of a slog. We hiked beside a creek with water cascading down the mountain side.

We had beautiful wildflowers that were just begging for a photograph.

The butterflies were also giddy with the new sources of pollen on this trail. This is what a hike is supposed to look like!

It was definitely up-hill, as we got closer and closer to the mountains surrounding us. We have wandered into another of God’s wonders!

The mountain meadows were now below us, and they looked more like golf greens with patches of snow instead of sand bunkers.

We continued to climb, until we finally climbed above tree line.

While we didn’t take a single picture of the views in the first 2.2 miles  hiking on that awful road, we couldn’t stop taking pictures once we actually got on the trail.

We had an early picnic (since we had an early breakfast), and then we made the final push to Ruby Jewel Lake. We had been walking for three hours when we saw the first other hikers of the day. They were leaving the lake just as we got there, so we had it all to ourselves. You will never find that in a national park!

We immediately started taking pictures of Ruby Jewel Lake from every angle. Some angles show how perfectly clear the water is so that you can see the rocks on the bottom.

Mark was sitting on the edge of the lake enjoying the views. 

But we couldn’t help but notice that the clouds were billowing up in the sky above the lake.

The mountain that rises above Ruby Jewel is Clark Mountain. At 12,951 feet, it still has patches of snow on it in mid-July.

Mark’s plan was to take a little nap since we had the lake to ourselves. But we found that we would have to share this lovely place with a few thousand bugs. They made napping a little less enjoyable. 

While Mark was trying to nap, Denisa was being greeted by the local marmots. 

Denisa loves taking pictures of these chubby little guys. It’s her opinion that you can never have too many pictures of moose or marmots.

We stayed around the lake for thirty minutes, then started the four-mile trek back down the mountain.

We had climbed up 1,739 feet today, and our legs were feeling it. We had to stop and rest our tired feet a time or two or three . . . on the way back down.

We were in a bit of a hurry since those pretty white billowing clouds we saw over the lake were now looking like angry gray rain clouds. We were hoping that we didn’t get rained on before we got back to the pickup.

But no matter how fast we needed to hike, Denisa will always stop for a good flower picture.

The columbines on this trail were the thickest we had ever seen. The usual purple blooms were almost white. Even though the flowers look great, this part of Colorado was beginning to look dry, and we were in a very high fire warning. They could definitely use some rain. We did get sprinkled on, but it did little more than make speckled rain patterns on the very dry dirt trail.

By the time we got down that last 2.2 miles of boring forest road, we were tired of this trail. This would have been one of our favorites if we could have actually started hiking at the trail head. But since we spent 60% of our hike on a steep and rocky road, we probably wouldn’t recommend it. 

Once we hiked back to our vehicle, we still had to go back on the road that we had driven before it got too bad for our four-wheel-drive pickup. We wish the state park would do something to make the road passable to normal vehicles!

One thing that we really like about the state park is their new shower house. For the second day in a row, we stopped by there for a nice shower right after our hike. This state park has six campgrounds, so it is almost laughable that they only have one shower house with three stalls in the entire park. But if you go there in the middle of the afternoon, you can have the place to yourself. We didn't take pictures of the new shower house, but Denisa did have extra wildflower pictures.

You can be sure that we stopped by the visitor center to log our three bull moose sighting this morning! It was one sighting after our cow moose sighting from yesterday!

We hope to come back to Colorado's State Forest State Park someday, as two of the best trails were closed for removal of dead pine beetle trees while we visited this time. Because this state park sits on the north side of Rocky Mountain National Park, those two trails allow state park visitors to hike to some beautiful lakes that are actually in the national park. But for now, we’re ready to make some dinner and relax after a full day of finding bull moose and hiking to Ruby Jewel Lake.