We stopped at Estes Park, which is just outside Rocky Mountain National Park. What a cute little town. The visitors’ center was very friendly and told us of a dirt road we should take, but we never found that road.
We saw a lot of signs like these.
They have a lot of lakes on the way up to the tops of these mountains and no one is ever swimming in them. HMMMM I wonder why, could it be that the lakes are created by snow melt?
This was probably the first mountain pass that we’ve ridden on that had very thin, tall evergreens close to both sides of the road. It’s amazing how different the terrain can be.
In the photo below you see scattered rocks. They call this Tundra Pattern, rocks forming “patterned ground” that is found only in Arctic and Alpine regions where temperatures remain below freezing at least 5 months each year. During the last Ice Age, freezing and thawing of this tundra topsoil forced these patterns to the surface.
It is so strange to be going up a mountain and to look down or over and see the road you were just on…. This is the view I had from the motorcycle over the side of the mountain.
The road was not as scary as the road to Mt. Evan, but the mountain roads out west are sure scarier than the roads back east. Notice the tall sticks on the sides of the road. That’s to help the snow plows to locate the road in high snow!
Treeline occurs where the average temperature is around 50 degrees during the warmest month of the year. Upslope of treeline, conditions make it challenging for tree growth.
Driving thru Rocky National Park we saw all kinds of different terrain.
We reached the top at 12,183 ft. altitude. The view on the backside of the pass was much greener than where we had come from.
It was much colder than the day we went to Mt. Evans so needless to say, it was VERY cold & windy. We turned right around and came back down.
The ride home also proved to be picturesque.
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