Colorado Birthday Road Trip - Part 2

For the second half of our Colorado road trip with David's sister, we started on Saturday morning with cold brew at Coffee Trader and then breakfast at Lighthouse. Lighthouse was... interesting. The food was decent, and one of the employees (the owner?) was extremely chatty and had long non-sequitur stories, and there was a small dog just a few feet from us sticking it's nose under a fence. The owner informed us the dog was named Jazz and he "loves feet." Fun times!

We began our drive for the day, a 121 mile journey to the northeast. We had a few short roadside stops along the way, including Hays Falls and the small historic town of Redstone. It's a tiny blip on the map, but we spent about an hour in the quaint downtown, which includes a one-room museum, a couple of tourist shops, a walking trail, and an interesting line of coke ovens that were used to turn coal into pure carbon for making steel.

Coffee Trader was a cute little converted house.

Breakfast at Lighthouse.

Jazz looking for a sausage...or some feet?

There were plenty of amazing views on the drive.

David and Natasha at Hays Falls.

Even the roadside streams are beautiful in Colorado!

Cure little museum in downtown Redstone.

Pedestrian bridge in Redstone.

The abandoned coke ovens.

Paul in a coke oven.

We drove the final 40 minutes to Glenwood Springs, checked into our hotel, and then set out for Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. This small amusement park sits on top of a mountain, at an altitude of 7,100 feet. You have to take a gondola to the top, which normally takes five minutes. Unfortunately for us, the gondola decided to act up, and broke down just before we boarded. It was back up about 15 minutes later, but stopped again while we were about 2/3 of the way up, and then stopped again when we were literally inches from the exit platform. 

Eventually we made it off the gondola and into the park, but the adventure didn't end there - unfortunately while Paul was in line for his first ride a park-wide lightning delay was announced. While the rides were closed, the caves (the original attraction at the top of the mountain) were still open, so we took a self-guided tour of the King's Row cave. Shortly after the tour, the rides re-opened, and Paul was able to get all of the coaster credits. Also of note, the Alpine Coaster might be the best in the US. After taking the gondola back down the mountain (no problems this time!) we had dinner at Frida (which was just mostly fine) and then relaxed in the hotel for the night.

View from our hotel. You can see the roller coaster on top of the mountain!

Natasha and Paul on the gondola.

David doesn't love heights, but gondolas are ok!

Views of downtown Glenwood Springs from the gondola.

At least we had amazing views of the roller coaster when our gondola got stuck!

Paul's getting his rides in!

Well, that's certainly a unique cave formation.

The main cavern of King's Row cave.

Going up on the Alpine Coaster.

Overview of the park from the gondola heading back down.

Natasha speckled with Friday's laser light show.

Chicken mole at Frida.

Sunday morning we woke up early for our reserved time at Hanging Lake trail. Like many trails and parks out west, this trail gets a lot of visitors, so they implemented a reservation system. Luckily we didn't have trouble getting one (David bought it 4 weeks in advance), and starting early wasn't a problem thanks to the time zone change. The trail is just ten miles east of Glenwood Springs, and interestingly has a one-way only exit from I-70 just for the trail. The trail starts on a paved bicycle path alongside the Colorado River, then turns north up a canyon while crisscrossing dead horse creek. The trail is not too difficult, but does have quite a bit of elevation gain and some steep parts near the end. The lake is very photogenic, and is ringed with small waterfalls. A separate small spur trail led to two larger waterfalls above the lake that you can walk behind. After hiking back down, we stopped for lunch 30 miles east at Pazzo's Pizza in Eagle.

The Colorado River at the beginning of the trail.

Starting to hike up toward the lake and falls.

Almost there!

First views of hanging lake.

It was really pretty here!

Under the falls.

We lucked out and were the only ones at the falls. A couple big groups came up as we were leaving.

More waterfall views.

The sun lit up hanging lake as the morning wore on.

There were lots of butterflies on the trail.

Last look before heading back down.

After lunch, we continued east, crossing in to Rocky Mountain National Park in the late afternoon. The only route across the park is Trail Ridge Road, which passes up and over the mountains. A full 11 miles of the road is above the tree line, with a high point of 12,183 feet. Our drive was interesting because of the dense clouds moving through the mountains. We were able to look down on the clouds filling the valleys, and also drove through several sections of very thick clouds. We stopped for a walk on the Tundra Communities Trail, which had great tundra and mountain views but the only animals we saw were pikas.

Colorado scenery. A portion of our journey was on a dirt road.

You pass a series of big lakes before entering the park.

A large wildfire in 2020 burned big sections on the west side of the park near Grand Lake.

Beautiful valley views.

Looking into a cloud filled valley.

Walking on tundra communities trail.

Panoramic view from the end of the trail.

The clouds gathered like pools.

Very strict toilet rules.

David above the clouds.

We had great views of the clouds moving through the valleys and mountains.

A pika gathering grass.

We're not kidding when we say we drove through the clouds!

Views from Sheep Lake.

Leaving the park and heading into town, we saw a huge elk lounging on the side of the road, right in front of a wagon labelled "elk crossing." We stopped for some pictures - don't worry, we didn't get too close and there was a fence between us. We checked into our hotel, the Apenzell Inn, which was more like a condo building. We had a two bedroom unit with a living room and kitchenette, and some mountain views from the window. For dinner we went to Himalayan Curry and Kebab in downtown Estes Park, which was doing a brisk business.

Scratching his rear with his antlers. Must be convenient.

Just chewing the day away.

Our hotel was great.

Dumpling appetizer.

Monday, our last day of the trip, was a busy day packed with activities. We started by going to the Mustang Mountain Coaster right when they opened at 9AM. Another coaster credit for Paul! From there we drove to Lily Lake, a trail in a detached section of Rocky Mountain National Park. It's an easy loop trail around a small lake, and we saw plenty of fish, salamanders, birds, and ground squirrels. From there we went to lunch at The Wapiti Colorado Pub, in the spot formerly known as Nicky's, where we'd been several times before. We like this place because it has outdoor seating above Fall River.

Because the National Park is so busy, they had a 5AM - 5PM reservation system for the most popular area of the park (Bear Lake), and the rest of the park also had a reservation system from 9AM - 2PM. Since we couldn't get in until then, we went back to our hotel for a bit to relax. FYI - David tried booking a better reservation 5 weeks in advance and they were sold out. If you're planning a trip to RMNP, make sure you plan WELL in advance, or be prepared to enter at a less than ideal time of day.

Tasha found some goats next to the Mustang Mountain Coaster.

Up up up!

We saw several snakes on Lily Lake trail.

Lily Lake is super cute.

Walking the board walk trail around Lily Lake.

So many rodents of all varieties at RMNP.

Duck...duck...duck...goo...oh wait it's a duck.

We've all heard of charismatic megafauna, but let's not overlook the cute AF microfauna!

Little hard to see, but those are salamanders!

Beer on the river in the CO sunshine is hard to beat.

Wapiti's river top deck is the place to be.

Lunch!

Paul is a well known beverage goblin. One for hydration, one for energy and one for fun!

Once it was our permit time, we drove into the park, waiting for about 10 minutes in the line to get in. We parked at a park-and-ride and took the shuttle bus up to the Bear Lake area. We then set off on the quite crowded trail to Emerald Lake. This is a fairly easy/moderate 3.2 mile round trip hike, passing Nymph Lake and Dream Lake along the way. Luckily a lot of the family groups turned around at those lakes, so the final stretch to Emerald Lake wasn't as crowded. It's a nice hike overall, with some good views of lakes, mountains, and a few little waterfalls. We then took the shuttle back to our car.

A lily pad filled lake early in the hike.

This is what some of the hike was like. National Parks are popular!

Dream Lake with Hallett Peak looming behind.

One of the steeper parts of the trail. Overall it wasn't too bad.

An adorable golden mantled ground squirrel.

They've learned to beg for food, thanks to irresponsible tourists.

The end of the hike, Emerald Lake.

David and Natasha on the hike back down.

Paul enjoying the scenery.

Some fish in the very clear lakes.

We drove around looking for animals, and didn't have too much luck. We did see mule deer, a turkey, and our biggest sighting - a moose! It was from a distance. Some other visitors didn't quite respect the moose's space, and went within a few dozen feet of it and even threw a stick at it to try to get it to move. 😒 One woman did confront them and even called a ranger to report them. Not sure what happened with that!

For dinner we got takeaway from The Post Chicken and Beer, which is located in the compound of the Stanley Hotel, where The Shining was filmed.

Beaver pond trail at dusk, where we didn't see any animals.

That's a moose. Trust me.

A deer right after leaving the park.

Tuesday morning we woke up fairly early to drive to the Denver airport, wrapping up a great (but short!) Colorado road trip.

A pretty good local lunch at the airport.