Winnebago Voyage: Driving all around Rocky Mountain National Park

This was our day to make the big tour around Rocky Mountain National Park. We headed to the entrance that's just a mile from our campground, but the traffic stopped before we even got to the visitor center which is outside the gate! We just sat there and didn't move! We didn't know if there was a long line to enter the park or whether there was an accident since we could see a blue light up ahead. We finally turned around and went to another entrance which is about five miles away and the woman at that gate said there was construction at the first gate. They had told us yesterday that they would be paving on Bear Lake Road today, but I guess they also worked at the entrance. We were glad we moved to the other entrance.

Old Fall River Road is a nine-mile one-way dirt road that leads to the highest point in the park, and the ranger had told us it was in pretty good condition, so we decided to try it. It sort of parallels a paved road that goes to the top, but we wanted to drive both, so we headed up the unpaved one. It was pretty smooth except for the deep ruts in the hairpin turns, which I was mostly able to avoid. I drove no faster than 15 miles an hour, and a lot of the time we weren't near any other cars, so I could just stop in the road and take my pictures. There are quite a few pullouts to let people by who want to drive faster.

This road ends at the Alpine Visitor Center, which is almost 12,000 feet in elevation. I had stopped once on the dirt road to walk down to a waterfall, and even though I had not gone down very far, it was hard to walk back up! I have definitely not adjusted to 11 and 12 thousand foot elevation! When we got to the visitor center at 12,000 feet I talked to the ranger and he said we should not stay there long as it would only get worse. I knew I didn't feel right!

We started back down and then stopped at Holzwarth Historic Site, which has some buildings that were built by settlers in the area. We walked to the first building which is near the parking lot and the others are a ½ mile walk away. They have a lot of retired folks as volunteers at this park and I mentioned that I couldn’t walk that far at this elevation, and he called another volunteer over to take us with his golf cart! So, we got to have the old-folks treatment!

The road around this park is not a loop, so you have to come back (mostly) the way you went. We drove down to the town of Grand Lake, ate lunch, and turned around to head back. When we got back to the Alpine Visitor Center, the cars were lined up to get into the parking lot. They had a ranger only letting one car in as one was leaving. We were glad we had already stopped there earlier!

Our return was on the paved road that we had bypassed while driving the dirt road, and the views are spectacular! We came upon two traffic jams: one because of a mother and baby moose, and another because of a large herd of elk.

When we got back to town, we managed to find a Safeway grocery store and a gas station. The lowest price gas here is only 85 octane, so we have to decide if we want that.