First off, it's my dad's birthday today, and though I intended to phone in and wish him well we landed at a campground without phone service of any kind. So, with apologies, happy birthday, dad.
We rose feeling better about life after a raucous thunderstorm rocked our campground last night. I could see the brightness of the lightning despite being inside the tent with my eyes closed as I tried to fall alseep. By morning all of our things and the ground around us were dry. Mountains breed killer storms, but they pass if you wait it out.
Long climbs up the mountains were punctuated by breaks for spectacular scenery and inquisitive conversation with other vacationers. Steep climbs went slow but the views from the ridges we tackled were worth every pedal stroke. We climbed to 12,000 feet in elevation as we crested the highest continuously paved road in the country and high-fived each other in celebration. The Carpenters' "Top of the World" made a suitable soundtrack for the occasion.
The Alpine visitor center was swarming with visitors as we ordered sausages for a fancy cafeteria style lunch, and we ate while viewing the slopes that drop out from under the gift shop. Then we mounted our bikes again and dropped several thousand feet in glorious, victorious descent towards a campground we had seen on the map and hoped we would have a chance of staying in. We passed Poudre Lake, headwaters of the pleasant stream we had bicycled along in Fort Collins, and a predictable traffic back-up where two bull elk were luxuriating in the camera lenses of travelers like celebrities accustomed to attention.
Timber Creek campground in Rocky Mountain National Park is quiet on a weekday, and situated in the middle of a controlled burn site that had hoped to mitigate the spread of invasive pine beetles which are sapping the life out of the native trees in the area. It is quite near the Colorado River and haven to many woodland creatures who linger on the edges of the campground preparing for the occasional foray into our campsites to explore the human borne scents and tastes.
We enjoyed a campfire with neighbors Ian and Amber, Kansas natives on vacation to the mountains. While we talked, a good number of elk sashayed out of the thicket and poked or prodded our belongings on the picnic table. Ian had fended them off earlier and helped me persuade them to move on, though it seemed they were used to human presence. One elk nosed at our tent while another licked at my panniers, leaving a spot of its spittle and some chewed foliage. I did not want to get too close in case I spooked them into hurting me in an unpredictable reaction, but I stood at about 8 feet away and windmilled my hands while shouting at them to leave.
A few of the elk have been tagged with radio locators on neckbands, and we hear that one of them recently carried away someone's backpack, which a ranger dutifully retrieved from the surrounding forest later. We locked our belongings up in the bear-proof boxes to avoid such a fiasco tonight.
We've hit the western side of the Continental Divide, our last crossing on the trip, we believe. There will nonetheless be many more mountains to climb before we reach our newly decided end goal of Grand Junction to catch a train back towards Portland. We feel lucky to have nearly a month left to explore Colorado.
Trail ridge road was awesome - congrats on riding over one the most badass roads. If you go through Kremmling, there's an RV park just before town that's really nice, and good coffee and breakfast stuff at "Big Shooter" in town (look for the sign with a cowboy holding two giant coffee cups instead of six-shooters)
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