Rocky Mountain National Park

We had a bit of a slow start thanks to the festivities last night but I was able to get Tom moving and we set off, heading West once more. The weather was a bit mixed with showers showing on the radar but that could not dampen our spirits as we headed towards the mountains. First up was Boulder Canyon - a road Tom used to ride on his friend's motorbike way back when. Then we joined the Peak-to-Peak drive which, as the name implies runs between two high mountain peaks.

This led us into Estes Park, a lovely high mountain town where we enjoyed a lovely cup of coffee by a pretty mountain stream:

Next up was the road into the Rocky Mountain National Park, the Trail Ridge road. It always amazes me how you can read about these routes but you are never quite ready for the incredible experience of the actual thing! The road was a well maintained National Park Road with lots of scenic pullouts with vista after vista to marvel at. We climbed to over 12,000 feet and there was snow on some of the peaks around us. The temperature dropped about 10 degrees as we climbed. Photos cannot do it justice.

Looking back into the valley we climbed up from - note the fun switchbacks

At the top

We are well above the tree line.

Two happy bikers!

We finished off the trail ridge road and unfortunately our luck with the weather ran out and the showers caught up with us. Thankfully we only had another 30 miles to go to get to our hotel for the night so we made tracks and got very wet in the process!

We are staying in Winter Park tonight - another lovely mountain town.