Day 7 (Trail Ridge Road/Roller Coaster)

We got up early again and decided to check out Trail Ridge Road. We drove this 2 years ago, so you would think I could remember how terrified Colleen is of heights. It wasn’t until we were taking turns like this that I remembered. At the first stop Colleen moved back a row and that helped a little bit. You have to have some nerve to drive this road and that was very apparent when we passed a driver going 5 mph and he was actually so afraid that he had crossed the double yellow lines and was half on my side of the road.

 

Here are the kids at one of the stops on Trail Ridge Road

 

We saw several animals at the stops along the road.

This is a yellow bellied marmot

Last year the elk were down by the campground, but because of the heat this year we only saw them up at the higher elevations.

We stopped at the Toll Memorial trail head (Toll was the park superintendent in the 20’s not a coin collector). The trail starts at 12,000 feet and climbs 200 in 1/2 a mile. This hike is through the Alpine Tundra.

Here we are starting up the trail.

There were an unbelievable number of flowers.

We hiked up to the  “Trail Ridge Mountain Index” it is at 12,304 feet, and you can use it to sight landmarks up to 60 miles away.

Ashley was a little crabby, but it made a great picture. 

There we many great views of the mountains. Here are a few pictures of them.

Click to view the full size

We spent the day exploring the  road and stopping to take in the views. When we got back Ashley had to finish her book.

We made a nice dinner I grilled pork chops and we had rice and fruit. We had a brief afternoon rain. Just as the rain started it stopped. It didn’t rain hard enough to put out the charcoal. We have decided the best fire for making S’moores is the charcoal, so we had S’moores and then used the charcoal to start a fire.