On our way to our first camping stop in Dinosaur NM, Utah, we traversed Rocky Mountain National Park. Starting in Estes Park, we took Trail Ridge road up and over front range of the Rocky mountains and descended to Grand Lake. We arrived at Rocky Mountain after the ‘scheduled entrance’ time but there was still an enormous line of cars waiting to enter the park. We ended up waiting more than an hour to actually get in to the park and begin our ascent — sigh. The day was, unfortunately, somewhat cloudy and there was considerable low flying clouds near the top of the range. We did manage to get a few sun lite glimpses of the valleys on each side of the range once we had climbed above the clouds.

View is eastward from near the summit. Estes Park is hidden in the centre left of the picture. A small glacier (really just packed snow) is seen to the right of the image. Note the clouds in the centre right of the image below elevation of the camera. The road passed through this cloud -- visibility was poor!View South West on descent from the summit. The beginnings of the Colorado River can be seen flowing down the valley toward Grand LakeLooking north west on the descent from the summit. The source waters of the Colorado River are in this direction.

 

Colorado/Wyoming/South Dakota - 2023 Trip Launch
Dinosaur NM