Time: Aug 5th-7th, 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.
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!
We left home at about noon, and directly went to Aroma, an Indian restaurant. It was pretty good in both service and ambience. Then we continued north on 29. This road is pretty good actually. Last time we went up to Yountville but the actual winery starts after Yountville when the road becomes bi-directional. We stopped curb side at couple of wineries, took some nice snaps beside bunches of grapes and lanes of grape vines. We continued on until Saint Helena, took right to Silverado Trail and headed south back home. This road zig zags on top of the same wineries that we passed north and it has some nice eye-catching spots, although the road has a faster speed limit and it is not that easy to stop. Soon, we were back on 29 and on our way home. 
