7/23 Rocky Mountain National Park & Moraine Campground

This post is a compilation of three nights and two full days in Rocky Mountain National Park.  

If you have been here in the past, there are some things that are new.  First, the number of people visiting this national park has increased substantially in the last few years.  This has created a lot of traffic in the park and in the town of Estes Park.  The town has probably doubled in size in the past ten years from when I first came here in my motorhome.  There are more hotels, more restaurants, more gift shops, and a lot more people visiting.  

Second, the national park has had to change its entrance policies to adapt to all the extra tourists.  The biggest problem is that there is just not enough parking inside the park.  This means you can easily drive to a spot where you want to hike or just visit for an hour or two and find the parking lot absolutely full.  The most crowded area is the Bear Lake area, where a lot of people like to hike.  There is a park and ride lot where you can take a shuttle to the Bear Lake area, that is assuming you can find a place to park in THAT lot!!

I remember when I was here ten years ago, there were shuttles from town, but those have stopped with only a permit-required hikers shuttle coming from town.  I have no idea why they would stop those shuttles, other than there is not adequate parking in town for all the people who would want to park there and ride the shuttles! 

So, not you have to get a timed-permit to enter the park, and a special timed-permit to drive to the Bear Lake area!!  If you are lucky enough to have a reservation in one of the campgrounds, as I did, you can come and go, but you have to go through two staffed entrance gates and another one to get into the campground!  This is the second gate where you have to show your Bear Lake pass.  I had to go through this to get to the campground, but got warned not to try to drive my RV to Bear Lake as I would not be allowed to park there.

This is the glacial moraine from which the largest campground was named.  This meadow provides good grazing for deer and elk. 

 

 

 

The next few photos are of the campground.  Sites are fairly well spaced apart, but there are no electrical hookups or even showers for campers.  There are toilets, but I did not use them so am not sure if they flushed or not.  

 

However, notice the brown boxes.  These are heavily built boxes for you to store food to prevent bears from getting it.  You can leave food in a trailer or motorhome, but you are asked to make sure it is in containers or in the refrigerator so that bears cannot smell it.  Keeping food in coolers is not adequate.

I will spare you the gory details, but this is where I slipped on the loose gravel and fell, badly bruising and scraping my right knee, elbow, and thumb.  I was walking downhill carrying two bags of trash, and the small gravel acted like ball bearings on the smooth asphalt.  Two campers who saw me fall, picked me up and one took my trash to the dumpster for me.  The other one walked me back to my motorhome and said she had seen several kids come down the side road and have their bikes slide out from under them.  I mentioned it to the ranger the next day, and they swept it clean. 

The next day, I hopped on the shuttle to head to Sprague Lake, which was recommended to me as being less busy than Bear lake.  Actually, walking has not been too bad with my messed-up knee.  Getting on the shuttle was a struggle with my sore knee, but I managed.

And as suggested, the local moose was busy munching her way through the lake.  Apparently, she comes here almost every day and spends hours eating, while ignoring all the crowds taking her photo.  

Here is a video of her.  (Sorry for the wind noise.)

 

I need to get my Rocky Mountain wildflower book out and look these up.  Is this first one fireweed? 

This is white yarrow. 

Heading back to the campground, I chatted with the female ranger and found out that a small handful of female mule deer liked to nap in some bushes near the campground ranger station.

Must have been a long, tiring day. 

This is a magpie who is waiting for someone to give him or her a drink from the water fill station.  They are noisy birds, and this one certainly knows how to get what he or she wants because I did let some water drip out. 

 

 

This is the Moraine Discover Center.  It has some nature exhibits and a very nice gift and book shop.  

On most days, Estes Park is packed with tourists buying shirts, gee-gaws, and other things, but if you look next to or behind some of the shops, you will find some very pleasant little parks with tables and benches.  I bought a hamburger and Coke, and took it to one of these to eat it.  Met and chatted with an older couple who were from Marlette, a small town in Michigan's Thumb area, so we talked about the ice cream shop and other places in the area. 

 

My generator has been misbehaving, so I am moving to a commercial campground tomorrow for one night so I can get AC and recharge stuff.  Also, having full hookups will let me work on unclogging my grey water tank.  On Monday, I drive through the national park alpine area to Granby, Colorado, where I will stay for a week in an electric hookup site.  I am also going to try to get a tire shop to check my tires thoroughly and see if my wheel bearings need maintenance.