Waking up a little after sunrise, and after only an hour or so of trying to gather warmer clothes from my buddy and his roommate, my cousin and I set out for Rock Mount National Park, near Estes Park, Colorado. If you haven't ever heard of the park, I suggest you look it up. There are some of the most beautiful views in all of Colorado, if not the great US of A. I obviously am up here in the dead of winter, but the few days I've been here in Fort Collins it has actually been rather mild in temperature for this time of year. The Hi temperature has been about 61 degrees and the low has been around 35 degrees. Although, the temperature in the Rock Mount Park was much different since it was up in them beautiful mountains an hour west of the city. It was here that I saw the first snow fall of the year (for me), although it wasn't when we initially got into the park but an hour or so later.
Upon entering the park the first site we headed to was the Alluvial Fan area in the northern most area of the park. This area received the name because it was here that a damn broke in 1982, which caused massive flooding, bringing tons of sediment, as well as large rocks and boulders from the sides of the gorge. This event happened in July 1982, killing 4 people in several different campsites that were several miles downstream of the damn, one of those who perished worked for the National Forrest. We initially were unable to visit this site as snow from the previous days was built up and the roads were pretty icy. However, it was on the way to the flood plain that we saw a female Elk that had been tranquilized by Rangers. The Park Rangers were in the process of testing for diseases, etc. to make sure the population is stable and not growing. Apparently, there has recently been a problem with large numbers of Elk in the area, and some of the folks at the National Forest have consider reintroducing some wolves into the area, to help cull the population naturally. Anyway, it was very interesting to see this taking place on one of the main roads in the park.
After talking to one of the Park Rangers who was helping with the Elk, and following his suggestion to not head further in the direction we were, we decided to head to the southernmost point of the park that we could get to in the winter. This lead us to the frozen Bear Creek, it was still beautiful since the snow was several feet thick and the wind was creating some cool effects on the rocks around the lake. My cousin even attempted to run across the frozen snow covered lake and made it most of the way, before turning around to continue on.
The next place we visited was Sprague Lake which ended up being closed due to maintenance, however it was somewhat visible and was also frozen solid and covered with snow. (Starting to see a pattern here with lakes.) Anyway, after farting around that area for a little while we headed back north towards what we were told were the better sites in the park. The first one on the way was the Many Parks Curve, which as the name suggests, was an area in the road in which it curved to give a great view of the many parks inside of the greater national park. It was here where we could see how glaciers had formed the many lakes and valleys in the area. This was truly the best view of the park, its beauty can't be described, and no picture will do it justice... just that amazing.
After that amazing spot we had to turn around and take another path (since most roads are for summer use) to head for the Alluvial fan, which was an extreme flood plain, as I explained earlier. It was here that we did our only real hiking of the day as the snow fall had mostly subsided by this point. The river was still barely active through the ice, the vast majority was frozen over, so we carefully climbed up the river bed making sure not to hit the soft spots in the ice. We hiked for about an hour up the gorge and got some great views opposite of the Many Parks Curve. All in all this was the best National Park I've ever been to, as well as the highest I had ever been in my life, several of the peaks were 14,000 feet high in the area. The roads and hiking trails averaged probably somewhere around 75000-9000 feet.
I really want to come back in the summer time, when the park is actually in season and do some extreme hiking/camping/climbing but that will have to wait for another time. Speaking of time, it is 1:51 AM local time. Got a big day ahead of me... disc golf, and maybe getting a little drink on.
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