Reflective. Our third day in the park dawned quiet and overcast. Torrey and I had spent the night at Box Canyon on the extreme northern edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, and our third morning had a different mood to it than the previous few days. Maybe it was the cloud cover, but it also could have been my sadness at leaving the area so we could move to the east side of the park. I never really spent much time on the west side of Rocky, and neither do a vast majority of visitors to the park. At most they'll head up to the alpine visitors center, maybe drop down to the Continental Divide, then head back east. We were on our third day exclusively on the west side of the park, and it was gorgeous and peaceful. I didn't want to leave.
Unfortunatley, we had to. We had reservations to honor, and our permits for staying where we were had expired. We packed up and hiked away from Box Canyon quietly, muted, almost. The loudest sounds were our footsteps on the trail and the occasional clack of my trekking poles against a rock. Even the birds and the streams seemed quieter than usual as we passed through the forest in an early morning lull. We reached the portion of trail that had given us such trouble two days before, where it was so steep that we were in danger of tumbling backwards down the mountain with one wrong step. We marvled that we had even been able to hike up it, and hiking down presented its own challenges in the form of loose rocks and twisted ankles.
We made it back to the Colorado River after carefully picking our way down the mountain, and the world seemed to wake up as the sun burned away the clouds as we approached Lulu City. We explored the ruins of the ghost town again, spying more cabins than we had on our first pass through the area. We were greeted (and by that I mean yelled at) by marmots sunbathing in open, rocky areas next to the path, where raspberry bushes grew plump and ripe. Our hike out of the forest took far less time than our hike in, but I'm not sure if that was because we were headed downhill or because we were better acclimated to hiking with a pack. Either way, we reached the car before I was fully ready.
I have to admit, I was a little relieved to see the parking lot at the trailhead. As much as I wanted to stay in the backcountry away from people, a parking lot meant my vehicle, and my car meant I was that much closer to getting real food and a change of clothes. Torrey and I ditched our packs in the backseat and piled into the front, taking off along Trail Ridge Road - always a favorite - with a stop at the Alpine Visitors Center for a meal and some trinket shopping.
Once on the east side of Rocky Mountain we descended into Estes Park, the town on the edge of the national park, to find ourselves showers and more food before we headed back into the park for the night. We stayed at one of the four established campgrounds in the park, Glacier Basin, where we sorted through our gear and prepped for another few days of backpacking as well as an ambitious day hike we had planned for the next morning. That night we were a lot more brave than we had been the previous few nights, actually staying out of the tent as dusk fell around us, watching the Milky Way blossom above our heads and catching glimpses of a few shooting stars. We were ready for more adventures.
Did you read the first few adventures in Rocky Mountain? You can see them again here, here, here, and here.
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