This has raced to the top of my favorite list. Not the absolute number 1 but only for one reason- it is such high altitude that it is very difficult for me to hike. This park is amazing with the various scenery and all the animals. We stayed at an RV park in EstesPark, Co. Estes Park itself was icky- very crowded and super touristy. There are only about 1500 residents of the city but it was easily as big as Moab, Ut. Shops, restaurants, tours etc of every kind and just soooo many people! The RV park was OK and we had a resident rutting bull elk that came around during the night!
Dave’s favorite park were the herds of elk- big herds like you used to see at Yellowstone. Rocky Mountain doesn’t have many big predators- just a few mountain lions and black bear, but no grizzly or wolves. So the herd of elk is oversized and is overgrazing the land. Elk were eliminated from the park in the 1970 s (I think then) and reintroduced a couple decades later. The new elk do not know the traditional migration pathways for the winter so it has been a tricky process to manage the herd. Hunters come in now and selectively cull the herd for the park.
We traveled the Ridge road that goes along the top of the mountain range for 48 miles. It gets to over 12,000 feet at places. We saw coyotes, pika and marmots up high in alpine country. It was a pleasant road to ride on. We also took the Fall Creek Road which was pretty terrifying at times. It is dirt, with steep and 180 curves. At least it was one way. There were a couple pretty falls and areas to hike in. But there were some areas where I was hanging on for dear life!
We went to all of the visitor’s centers that were open and also to the very pretty area around Grand Lake. We did a pretty nice hike there since it is only 7000’ high. Haha. During the high part of the trail we again crossed the continental divide.
This is a very busy park, very touristy town but so amazing. We will definitely be back with at least 4 full days to enjoy this beauty!