Who the heck decided to wake up at 4:00 to go through a national park??
I guess, in part, that would be me.
We discovered a few days ago that RMNP was requiring reservations to enter the park between 6am and 5pm. So we looked at the reservations and found that the earliest we could get in was 2pm. That would put us in Steamboat Springs around 7 if we just rode through without stopping and then what's the point if you aren't going to stop and enjoy the scenery.
So we figured that if we arrived before 6am, we could get in without a reservation Then Sean and I talked to a ranger who told us that lines begin forming around 5:30, and once the lines form its hard to get past everyone, so really, we need to be IN the part before 5:30. That means we need to head to the part before 5:15 and to be safe, 5:00.
So.... we set our alarms for 4:30 so we could pack and be ready at 5:00, but Sean didn't sleep well and woke up at 4:00 and I got up as well.
Complicating all this was my motorcycle tires. At midnight, my cell phone made an odd noise. I didn't know it was my phone, I just knew something made an odd noise. Then it did it again 10 minutes later and this time I did check the phone. The rear tire of my motorcycle had contacted my cell phone to notify me that the pressure was below 25 lbs.
So at midnight I got up and went out to check the tire. It didn't look flat and I slowly rolled the bike forward to look for something stuck in the tire.... Nothing.
So I went back to sleep.
This morning I realize that it's the first time I've ever slept close to the motorcyle all night and maybe the cold temperature reducing tire pressure is a normal thing and would wake me up every night if I was close enough.
So I'm up at 4:00am with about 5 hours of sleep. I packed everything including the fruit I bought for breakfast.
We met at the front drive of the Hotel, talked for a bit, then said a prayer and headed for the park.
We were told to use the North Entrance because it's not as busy. There was no one in the ranger booths and we rode right into the park with several other cars in front and behind us.
Our first stop was the alluvial fan. It's a cool river feature with rocks and cascading water, but it was all blocked off for construction. I was really sad because a sunrise with water cascading over the rocks would be a gorgeous photo.
We found some picnic tables in the pitch black and everyone pulled out whatever food they had purchased and we ate with a few flashlights shining around.
I had raspberries, nectarines, and some trail mix. But Angela also gave me a banana and Ron passed out Oreo cookies. We talked and munched while the sky slowly brightened until we could see things around us.
Suddenly someone called out "There's an elk over there". I got up to look but couldn't see it way out across the valley floor despite how hard I looked. Then someone said "no, not out there, just beyond the fence". And sure enough, about 30 yards away was a massive elk with a huge antler rack just munching on the grass. It could care less that we were there, or that cars continued to drive past.
After that excitement we packed up our trash and headed deeper into the park.
Sean lead us up toward Trail Ridge Road just as the sun began to shine over the horizon, but it rose as blood red because of all the smoke from the nearby fire. I've seen blood read fire sunrise a few times in the past and this was still just as eerie.
A few miles up trail ridge we stopped at a scenic overlook. Sean lead everyone to the upper parking lot, but I just flipped around and went back down to the lower parking lot because I've walked down many times in the past and didn't need to experience the joy of walking down again. Sean called me lazy for not walking with everyone and I yelled back "You bet"
We were taking a picture with the red sun behind us when someone commented that it would be nice to take a picture from the top of the big rock wall on the other side of the street. So Ron said "You bet I will" and started to walk over. Karen hung on his arm telling him not to do it, but Ron went on over and climbed up about 15 feet to get his picture. Ron's a real adventurous 65 year old. (Hope I got that right)
We got back on bikes and headed on up the road. The sun was climbing higher and starting to warm things up by the time we reached the 2nd big scenic overlook. We started the day at 50 degrees, then surprisingly it warmed to 66 at the alluvial fan. Then warmed to 69 at the first pullout and now it was just over 70.
We stayed at the 2nd overlook for a long time. Well over 30 minutes because no one wanted to risk super cold weather up on top. We were there long enough that the chipmonks came out to beg for food. They put some trail mix on Karen's shoulder and managed to get a couple to sit there and eat the nuts. Karen was thrilled.
Finally we were bored enough to risk the wide open space on top of the mountain. The last time John, Greg and I did this ride, we got on top and found ourselves in a full on blizzard, in July. But this time the skies all around were clear, other than the smoke.
We needn't have worried. There was no howling wind or hail stones up there. Just a nice road with 360 degrees of beautiful views. The roads were still very empty, nothing like a normal summer day. I guess arriving early really pays off when you don't have to deal with all the (other) idiots in the park.
We rode slowly along through the gentle turns of trailridge road at 12,183 feet. It's the highest continuous paved road in the US.
Way too soon we reached the visitor center and pulled of to take a break. The visitor center and the cafeteria were both closed and not due to open for a few hours. So we walked around taking pictures and looking for elk on the flats below the overlooks.
Eventually, Ron and Karen decided to do a hike to the top of the peak overlooking the parking lot. It looked to be a few hundred feet high. Rick joined them for the hike and all 3 made it to the top and back.
Not long after they got back someone pointed back up the trail and called everyone. A pair of elk came running around the side of the hill and stopped by the trail. Everyone oood and awwwd and snapped pictures. Then they just took off again.
Once you leave the visitor center you start descending off the mountain with a series of switchbacks. It's redundant to say the road was great. We stopped once to look at a mother moose and her baby, then left the park.
We stopped in Grand Lake to get some brunch. Most of us got an omelette of some sort. We sat out on their open air patio and enjoyed the morning. It was kind of a nice relaxing end to the park ride. While we ate, we talked about some of our past rides through the park. Angela pulled up a picture we took years ago with most of us draped over the big park sign, then nothing would do but we all needed to go back and take a group picture at the sign.
It was only a couple miles back to the sign. Several people climbed behind the sign, others around the sides or below.
The rest of the day was spent riding to Steamboat Springs. It was way too hot and sunny so I didn't take many pictures.
For dinner we were joined by Drew and Penny who had driven over from Salt Lake. We went to a mexican restaurant downtown where we sat on the roof. The roof was covered by a big deck, that fact will become important later.
I ordered some carnitas tacos and really enjoyed it. Everyone else liked their choices as well. We spent a long time reminiscing about all the rides we had done in the past. Many of my other motorcycle trips on this blog were with these people, and none of them were ever boring.
Finally we asked the waitress for our checks and sent her off with a stack of credit cards.
When she brought the bills back, she was setting them down when the top credit card fell out of it's order and fell perfectly between the boards of the deck and landed on the actual roof about a food below. She looked embarrassed and said it had happened before and they could get the card back. She left to tell the manager, but neither she nor the manager ever came back.
It turned out to be Sean's credit card that had fallen. He waited for a while, then started trying to figure how to get the card himself.
You could see the card if you shone a camera flashlight just right. Then someone figured out that you could access the crawl space from a small area nearby. So Brenda pointed her phone's flashlight down between the slats to highlight the card and Sean found a 2x4 that he could reach in and just touch the card. But there was no way to actually pull the card out. There was no ridge or hook to pull with.
They tried that for a while, then Ross remembered that he had some double sided tape on his bike. He ran down to get it. They added the tape and soon Sean had his card back.
It took over half an hour to get the card. The restaurant did nothing, and still expected Sean to pay for his meal, or at least no one offered him any sort of compensation for the ordeal. One of the waiters said the manager wasn't present, and the girl had gone home.
So that's one of "memories" we'll all share from this trip. There's always a couple of good ones to take back with you.
Once again, my photos aren't in order.
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