Rocky Mountain

Time: Aug 5^th-7^th, 2016

Place: Rocky Mountain National Park, Pike’s Peak, Colorado Springs

Company: Wife and daughter

Highlights:

Preview: A visit to the Rockies was on my bucket list for a very long time. But kept pushing out thinking there is nothing much to see – or rather thought its similar to the Smoky Mountain. But it was always in the back of my mind to go there, especially because it is just a 2 hour non-stop flight from SFO. We were planning an East coast trip for Sept long weekend trip when we saw good deal for Rockies on first week of August and just booked the tickets. Rest of the planning followed suit…

Day 1: Left home at 3 am to reach SFO at 4 am. Just a 3 hr sleep overnight. Caught the 6:20 am Frontier flight to Denver, and reached destination at about 10 am. We didn’t have too much planned for that day, so took it easy. Spent some time at the airport taking pics, had brunch, took the shuttle to rental car and by the time we left rental agency, it was almost 12 pm.

Drove to Estes Park, which is like the Eastern gateway to Rocky Mountain. Tontu got sick just as we reached, and we presumed it was due to the motion sickness which is very common with her. It was her sickness #1. Then followed a series of navigational mistakes:

We saw boards for Rocky and blindly followed it. Unfortunately it was taking away from where we actually wanted to go, which was the Bear Lake. The board took us to Fall River Visitor Center. We were actually supposed to enter from Beaver Meadows Visitor Center. Mistake #1. So to avoid the winding road within the park boundary, drove all the way back to Estes Park downtown and re-enter. Mistake #2.

We had spotted a deer on our way up, so was trying to look at it on our way back when I missed a right turn. Mistake #3. Then the GPS took me to a wrong road. Mistake #4. Finally got to Estes Park downtown. It is vibrant and colorful. Reminded us of Gatlinburg in Smoky Mountain. I was so absorbed that I missed one more right turn. Mistake #5.

Finally found the right board for Rocky Mountain re-entry. But, GPS now showed left. So followed GPS assuming it knew a better, faster, shorter route. After about 2 miles, we hit a dead-end! Mistake #6. Left picture shows actual road traversed. Right picture shows the road that I should have taken!

Switched the GPS off and followed the new signboard all the way to Rocky Mountain entrance, which was via the Beaver Meadows. Directly headed to Glacier Gorge trailhead to hike the trail to Alberta Falls. On the way, we were fortunate to see 2 elks with huge antlers. Reached trailhead and then Tontu sickness #2.

The hike was moderately strenuous. It was almost a mile, and the little kiddo almost gave up, but we egged her on. Finally we reached the falls. It was spectacular and worth the hike. We started back and carried her most of the way back. Then Tontu sickness #3. She now seemed too dehydrated and devoid of energy. She slept off in the car.

We continued on to Bear Lake parking lot. The hike to the lake was very short. The lake was superb. It was formed millions of years ago from a melting ice chunk. The near-still lake reflected the surrounding mountains and the moving fog seemed unearthly and spectacular. Thankfully, Tontu woke up just at the right time to witness the natural beauty. We spent quite some time taking pictures and then we headed back to the hotel. Then Tontu sickness #4.

Then Mistake #6. Took a right instead of a left. Drove for quite some distance – almost 10 minutes when finally I realized I was going the wrong way. Got too tired with so many mistakes and sickness stops. Finally reached the hotel and ditched the initial plan of going out to an Indian restaurant for dinner. Ordered a dominos pizza and retired for the night. Once again, left picture shows actual road traversed. Right picture shows the road that I should have taken!

Day 2: Got up at 7 am. Quick refresh and breakfast. Had a long day planned ahead – to traverse through the Trail Ridge road and reach Colorado Springs by evening and to see one of the many attractions at that place. But unexpectedly, Tontu threw up three times successively within a very short period of time. She became too dehydrated and energy-less and sleepy, even after a full night’s sleep. Something didn’t seem right. Internet didn’t provide any nearby Urgent Cares either. So, we decide to push on and reach Colorado Springs as fast as we could but thankfully on the way to Trail Ridge itself, we found Estes Park Medical Center – which had both an Emergency Room and an Urgent Care. This was the first time we were visiting a doc on a vacation!

Formalities over, the doc finally met Tontu and did some basic check-up. We were relieved to know that it was nothing really serious. She was mildly dehydrated – and most likely the reason for throwing up so many times was lack of oxygen at this elevation - also known commonly as "Altitude Sickness". (Estes Park was at about 7500 ft. & Denver was about 5000 ft.). This is a common Her body needed adjusting and doctor advised us not to venture the Trail Ridge road – which would climb up to 12000 ft. Best advice was to take sips of water – which apparently happened to work miraculously.

We took some time deciding and finally thought we will stick to our original plan of going through the Trail Ridge road. Thankfully Tontu slept off, and off we started. It was 11:15 am finally when we left the Medical Center, and we were about 2 hours delayed in our plan. Our first stop was Many Parks Curve. Tontu was sleeping so I parked the car and went alone to take a look. After a quick panaromic look, headed up the road again.

Second stop was Rainbow curve. This offers superb scenery – and almost the entire uphill road from Estes Park. Thankfully even wifey was able to see from the car. We were now above cloud level and we could even see snow on mountain tops. We continued on. Next stop was Forest Canyon. Another scenic spot. This place is above tree line, and the curving road on the mountain is an awesome sight to see. While it is pure mountain meadow on the right, it is full forest on the left, with no view of the ground (hence the name forest canyon). And on the meadow were more wildlife animals peacefully grazing. Fantastic scenery. Especially the feeling of being inside the clouds.

Then the road goes through a ‘Rock Cut’. We passed through it and skipped the Tundra trailhead which has a 0.5 mile trail to Tundra. We ditched it, since we were keen on getting through the road & to a lower elevation as fast as possible due to Tontu’s status. Our next stop was Lava Cliffs where we saw a colorful blotch of snow like a glacier except that it was purple in color. This is the highest spot on the road where we stopped – 12135 ft. We then drove through the actual highest elevation on the road which was 12183 ft and reached Gore Range – another overlook point. Next up was Alpine Visitor Center but the parking lot was full and a ranger was asking us to drive through. We didn’t mind much since we were keen on getting down anyways. From here on, it was all downhill.

Next stop was at Medicine Bow Curve. This had lush greenery and we could see the elevation from which we were now descending. After quite some time, we reached the Milner Pass. It was drizzling at this time but we were lucky to get the parking spot right in front of the Continental Dividesignpost. This is an amazing geological position and felt nice to be there.Water on one side of this divide heads to Pacific Ocean and the other sideheads to the Atlantic. This is the second time we were on a Continental Divide, first time being on Glacier National Park. For the first time during the entire stretch of Trail Ridge road, Tontu woke up and agreed to come out of the car for a pose albeit. But after this, she was back to her normal self and didn’t seem to be any more dehydrated. She was done with her sickness episodes. Thank God!

We continued on downward. We saw more elks. Very soon we came to Kawuneeche Visitor Center. Tontu filled up the Junior Ranger activity book and met up with a Park Ranger who asked her a number of questions which she answered to the best of her abilities. At the end, she was asked to take an oath – which is funny actually, it goes something like I wont step on ants, etc.! -  and she got a "Junior Park Ranger" badge! She was so proud of it. We spent some more time at the center, watched the movie in the theatre and bought a magnet.

Our next stop was supposed to be the Adams Falls trailhead. But we missed a turn and we went straight to Grand Lake shore. It turned out, for once, to be a good mistake! Lake was truly grand and very beautiful, so we parked the car and Tontu ventured into the lake. The lake even had small waves. Very conveniently, there was an ice cream shop nearby and the whole setting was straight out of a postcard – mountains, lake, ice cream and children frolicking around. Had a very pleasant time – and it seemed a nice stop for Tontu especially who had a tough start to the day in the morning.

Having obtained the right directions to Adams Falls, we then proceeded thither. Tontu was in full form, and she enjoyed the short hike (0.3 miles), at the end of which was a gushing waterfalls. It was another splendid scenery and our last one on the Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) range. The trail went on a small loop bordering the stream (that would eventually go through the falls) and it was pleasant all through.

By the time we pushed off from Adams Falls, it was almost 5 pm. We spotted a deer near the trailhead and continued on to our next destination – Colorado Springs. It was a full 3 hour drive and the road crossed a mountain, went via many mountain passes and many scenic Colorado meadows. It bordered the RMNP all through. It even cut through Denver. 

On the way, we had rain and the rain caused a fantastic double rainbow. It was our second experience of a double rainbow (first one was in Maui, Hawaii). Although we were on a freeway (I-70), the road seemed to weave through many small towns (like Idaho Springs) and there were many twists and turns and crests and troughs. At a speed of 70 mph, that was one enjoyable drive.

Once we passed Denver and headed south, it was all meadows and lush scenery. Soon the road became a country road and by this time, it was raining really hard with thunder and lightning. It was an extremely long time since we had seen a lightning and it was the first time Tontu was seeing it. There seemed to be a flash flood warning in the state of Colorado and we were almost in the middle of it with roads being clogged with water. However, just as we reached our destination, the rain decreased – our destination being a restaurant (Little Nepal).

Food was ok-dokey but service was extremely slow – maybe because of the popularity. We packed up lunch for the next day too, considering we had a full packed schedule. We then headed to our hotel – Howard Johnson – to retire for the night. It was about 10 pm and we were all extremely tired.

Day 3: After a light breakfast at the hotel, we left at 8:45 to Manitou Cliff Dwellings. After 15 minutes, GPS said we had arrived but obviously we hadn’t, so we had to manually ask around and finally we got there just after 9. There isn’t nothing much to see – maybe an hour or hour and half at the most. Since we had a packed day, we kept it for an hour. Some interesting cliff dwellings indeed – hard to imagine how folks lived back then. It was pretty well constructed – complete with balcony, windows, etc. -  considering there was no usage of modern day tools. The pictures came out well – especially after we set our cameras to same settings as antelope canyon scenery. We went in and out of caves, climbed up, down the ladders, took pictures of one another and selfies, visited the museum and we were done.

Our main attraction was the Cog train up the Pike’s Peak and we had to be at the ticket counter by 10:10 am since we had booked round-trip tickets for the 10:40 am online days before. We barely reached the place, packed up our stuff, checked in, went to restroom, had few bites, when it was already time for us to board the train. We were conveniently placed one beside the other, and off we went. The conductor was quite knowledgeable and had answers for every questions raised – ranging from technicalities of the Cog train to the number of male deer on the mountain. She also infused some amount of light humor which helped with the 1.25 hr climb up. There were many tiny animals up near the top – the ones which are used to high altitude and cold climate. As we climbed, temperature got chillier and we all put on our jackets. If it was in 80s down bottom, up top it was in 30s! But it was sunny, so it was nice. There are only 2 cog rails in US – one for Mount Washington in New Hampshire (which I had scaled with my parents in 2006) and this was the other one – Pike’s Peak in Colorado (which I was scaling with my wife and daughter in 2016).

Soon enough, we were up on top of Pike’s Peak - . Apparently oxygen is only 66% here (at sea level it is 100%) – so it is natural for folks to feel altitude sea sickness. But thankfully, none of us faced effects of altitude sickness. Just to give a perspective, given below is the elevations I have reached previously that I believed were significant –

• Mount Washington (2006) – 6,289’ (surprisingly this is an insignificant number comparatively!)
• Haleakala (2014) – 10,023’
• Yamunotri (2004) – 10,797’
• Badrinath (2004) – 10,827’
• Gangotri (2004) – 11,204’
• Kedarnath (2004) – 11,657’
• Trail Ridge Road (2016) – 12,183’
• Pike’s Peak (2016) – 14,114’

We took pics all around the peak, a cloud cover came soon over the peak and we were all enveloped by it. We couldn’t spend too much time since we were given only about 20-25 minutes for ourselves before the train started downward. So we had to hurry up, walking around the visitor center, taking pictures of ourselves, of the scenery surrounding us when the clouds opened up, etc. But still, it was sufficient. We didn’t spend too much time at the visitor center.

The journey back down was uneventful. Even the conductor stopped talking – she was into answering questions mode now. I even dozed off for a bit unknowingly. Tontu slept the entire journey down - which was just more than an hour. Good for her. It was almost 2 pm when we finally reached down.

Our next stop was Garden of the Gods (where we also had our yester-night packed lunch). It was a short drive away. The visitor center was awesome and had lots of interesting information. The one that I liked best was a short video about Earth millions of years ago, the Pangaea supercontinent, and how the continents moved and how it is now. But we didn’t have a lot of time to spend at the visitor center. So we headed out to the so-called Garden which is not like a typical garden made of flowers. It is a garden of uniquely shaped massive rock formations, some of them even red in color – thanks to the oceans that carved them millions of years ago. The owner of this specific land liked it so much that he named it as truly the garden of the Gods, and also ensured it was always free for the public.

Our first stop was at North main parking lot where we took the Central Garden trail. It is a short 1 mile loop trail that goes amidst one of the tallest rock formations in the entire region. It is at times like a huge fort wall, and contains so many pores that it is a rock climber’s paradise! Sure enough, we could see many climbers at different altitudes on the rock formations. We quickly went through the trail and took many pictures at different angles of the various rock formations. It was at times drizzling but it never rained. We were done with it by about 3:45 pm.

We decided to head back to Denver to catch our flight but it seemed too early. So we made another short stop. This one was for Tontu – it was a shortish hump of a boulder. Not too big nor too small and it was fun for Tontu to climb. She needed little bit of support but not entirely – which made her feel as if she was climbing a huge mountain all by herself. There were times when she was scared too since she was losing balance and I was there to help her out of it. Finally she felt as if she had accomplished something great! Although it was just a 15-20 minute stop, this small trek was very refreshing and it generally felt good to have done it.

It was almost 4:30 when we finally left to airport. Out flight was at 9 pm and there was a nagging thought that we were wee bit early. Considering it was just less than 2 hr drive to airport from Colorado Springs, that would mean we would be at airport almost 2.5 hrs before our flight. So I drove easily, staying just below the speed limit and generally enjoyed the drive and scenic vistas. We still had one more place called Seven Falls planned to visit but we ditched it due to lack of time. It seemed a goodish place actually but we had too little time to see it. Considering some other things that we missed [Royal Gorge Bridge], maybe we should have stayed for one more day at Colorado Springs, but anyway, it was ok.

As it turned out, it was good that we left at 4:30. We encountered a massive traffic jam (thanks to an accident) en route to Denver, and got stuck for one complete hour with traffic hardly moving. By the time traffic started moving, it was already 6 pm, and we still had an hour’s journey left. So I drove really fast, and even reached 100 mph at one instant without even realizing I was going so fast! We saw one more accident soon after but thankfully the totaled cars (one of them belonging to an Indian family!) were already towed to the side of the road and traffic was moving already.

Anyways, by the time we filled the fuel and returned the car, it was already 7 pm, and we were right on time. We took the shuttle to the airport, checked in, got through security, took the airport shuttle and reached gate at about 8 pm. Then we realized that our flight was delayed by about 40 minutes. After 20 minutes, it was announced that it was further delayed by 40 minutes. By the time the flight finally departed, it was almost 10:30 pm. So, instead of reaching at 10:30 pm SFO time, we reached at midnight.

At the baggage carousel, another incident occurred. The bags never came! The carousel never moved! We waited and waited and waited, but nothing happened. And there was no one there – none from airport, none from airlines too. After 45 minutes, we passengers got fed up. Each of us started calling the Frontier help desk which sucks anyways since it is all automated. Somehow couple of us got through the call, and finally at 1 am, our bags came. Called the car parking shuttle for pick up, and finally got to our car at about 1:30 am. The ride home was smooth and uneventful, thankfully. We reached about 2:30 am and retired for the night. We were 2.5 hrs delayed – thanks to the airline and then the baggage department. I wrote a painful letter to Frontier Airlines depicting the sad state of affairs. [And for that, I was given some coupons! Now, where will that take us?! Wink, wink!!]

Overall, it was a very adventuresome trip. What with the visit to the urgent care due to Tontu’s dehydration episode, driving to 12k ft elevation despite her health, and topping it with 14k ascent the very next day! And then the traffic jam that caused anxiety on our way back to Denver airport, the delay in the flight, the delay at the baggage claim, etc. But the lasting memories will be that of the sub-alpine “Bear lake” which has a mirror-like reflection, the beautiful tundra of the alpine region of the Rockies and the many wildlife that we witnessed in the short 3-day span that we spent in Colorado.

Colorado is a beautiful state and easily one of our favorites!