Trail Ridge Road is the road through Rocky Mountains National Park. I had been looking forward to this drive since we started planning our vacation, perhaps even more than the idea of driving to the top of Pike’s Peak. Cresting at over 12,000 feet, you truly feel like you are at the top of the world.
We spend parts of several days on Trail Ridge Road. I took a lot of photos during our drive, but for the most part the time was spent behind the wheel. I’ve posted a few shots that give a bit of the flavor for what it was like, but like a lot of places in the great outdoors, photos hardly do the scenery justice.
Parts of the road have no berm and no guardrail, and the consequences for distraction can be pretty dramatic. Kathy took quite a few photos through the windshield and I took a few with my phone, but they are mostly record shots and not really worthy of publication. I may try to post a gallery of phone photos from our trip at a later time.
Beautiful! It is a world of its own that we visit once in a while. It can take the beat away. A friend and I will be driving up there in a couple of weeks to make a day of it.
I may come back out and join you. I’m about done with the heat!
It certainly is a beautiful area of the country, Tom, and it’s easy to understand why you’d want to spend time here. Very nice! I’d hoped we’d make it further west this year but the new mobile job has altered our plans.
I deeply appreciate scenes of snow and cooler climates at the moment. The heat index will be hitting 105-115 each day this week. 🙂
It sounds like you have traded some flexibility for a chance to stretch the travel dollars a bit. Not a bad trade as long as you’re happy with the choice. The great thing about Colorado – and the rest of the West – is that it will most likely still be there when you are ready! 😉
It is true that photos never do full justice to places like these but I’m still getting a strong sense of the beauty that these places seem imbued with, looking at your photos. My wife wants to go visit relatives she has in Colorado some time and if we do I’ll be sure to include the Trail Ridge Road on our itinerary.
Thank you, Cedric. It’s definitely a place to experience and worth the time to go. If I had had more time I would have chosen to spend some of it at more “photographically appropriate” times, but with other things to do, sunset coming at 9:00pm and sunrise coming at 5:30am that wasn’t on the agenda.
And when you go, I know a guy in Fort Collins you should visit! 😉
My favorite image from above is the Mormon style barn photograph with the mountains and clouds in the background. It looks a lot like the barns you see near Grand Teton NP. I wonder if Mormons settled in that part of Colorado? That could be an interesting story……..
This part of the Rockies is certainly spectacular, but I still prefer the eastern Sierra Nevada range (eastern California). I don’t know why, but I do. Maybe it’s because I like Yosemite more than Rocky Mountain NP.
I’m not sure about Mormons, but I did like the barn. The angle I really wanted was on the other side of the barn, but I would have needed to cross a rain-swollen river to get there and decided not to try. That would have actually had the snow-capped mountains in the background and not just the dead tree covered hillside. I’ll save that for my next trip!
California is definitely on my agenda. Although I’m certainly not done with the Rockies, there are many other mountains to see, that’s for sure. I have a feeling I will also like Yosemite when I actually get there! 🙂