Rocky Mountain National Park’s Trail Ridge Road (Wikipedia) crosses the park from Estes Park on the east to Grand Lake on the west. It is a segment of U.S. Highway 34 and is the highest continuous highway in the United States. Crossing the Continental Divide at Milner Pass ((elev. 10,758 ft/3,279 m), it reaches its highest point at 12,183 ft (3,713 m), near Fall River Pass.
On this visit, the day we crossed on Trail Ridge Road to Grand Lake and back started out cool, with precipitation predicted. We ran into a little rain and quite a bit of fog, some of which rolled in when we were on the Tundra Communities Trail, which climbs a couple hundred feet, starting at about 12, 100 ft. elevation.
On the way back to the campground, we stopped at the gift shop next to Alpine Visitor Center – at Fall Creek Pass – at a little after 3 PM to take a break from the fog and get a cup of coffee. However, the gift shop was closed, as was the visitor center. The temperature had dropped from the mid 50s earlier in the day when we were there to 35°F.
About three hours after we made it back to the camper, the park service closed the road.
Blog posts from this visit to
Rocky Mountain National Park:
- Bear Lake
- Fall River Country (this post)
- Trail Ridge High Country (coming soon)
- Estes Park, Colorado (coming soon)
- Trail to Nymph and Dream Lake (coming
soon) - Moraine Country (coming soon)
Selected Information
Resources:
Rocky Mountain National Park
- National Park Service– Rocky Mountain National Park
- Wikitravel
- Wikipedia
Estes Park
- Convention and Visitors Bureau
- Town of Estes Park
- Wikipedia
- Wikitravel
- Trail Gazette (newspaper)
- Stanley Hotel
Grand Lake
- Grand Lake Chamber of Commerce
- Wikipedia (the lake)
- Wikipedia (the town)
- Town of Grand Lake