World United States Colorado Rocky Mountain National Park

Tales From The Open Roads & Salty Seas Our National Parks Journey

RMNP, CO - Peak to Peak Scenic Byway Jun 7, 2008

Winter comes early to the Rockies…and stays late. Trail Ridge Road is still closed so our plan for today is to drive the beautiful Peak-to-Peak Scenic Byway. This road was originally planned to connect Long's Peak and Pike's Peak but instead connects Rocky Mountain National Park and Roosevelt National Forest. There is, however, no shortage of towering lofty peaks along the route, which is one of Colorado’s oldest scenic byways. The state is blessed with numerous mountain peaks topping 14,000 feet.

So, we loaded up the Jeep and Foxy and drove west along the Big Thompson River to Estes Park. The traffic was much heavier today and an additional transportation element was on the road; bikes and motorcycles. It’s the weekend and the weather was gorgeous so we could see why the bikers were out in hordes. The snowmelt seemed to have swelled the river even more overnight.

We turned off at Estes Park on Highway 7 and quickly found a car wash. The guys sprayed and scrubbed the mud and it looked really good when they finished; I was impressed as that mud from St. Vrain’s was really caked on. Now, with a clean Jeep, we headed south on Highway 7 ready to soak up the scenery.

Our first stop was Lily Lake and, while the lilies are long gone, this is a peaceful, serene spot. We later passed The Aspen Lodge, which brought back memories to Joe of a conference he attended there many winters ago, and he almost froze to death when the heating went out in some of the cabins.

Long's Peak loomed ahead; at first, it was haloed in wispy clouds but the clouds passed and we had a good view of this 14,255-foot mountain. Many people attempt the hike to the summit, a formidable adventure only for the hardy...or fool-hardy depending on your perspective. The peak is reportedly visible to half of Colorado’s population and was a landmark for the early pioneers.

We had lunch at a nice rural little restaurant, Millsite Café, and continued on south through Roosevelt National Forest seesawing over forested ridges and valleys. The aspens are budding and are a beautiful shade of green. We got to the little historic town of Nederland and decided to turn around there.

On the way back north, we enjoyed the vistas from a different perspective. The towering peaks overlooked the hilly forests and expansive meadows and it seemed the views were more beautiful while traveling in this direction.

We turned east to Lyons and traveled through an impressive canyon. The carvings by erosion on the rock walls evoked images of faces and, if you stretched your imagination, all sorts of animal shapes could be visualized. When the pioneers went west through here, they used these perceived images to name some of the mountain ranges; such as the Mummy Range. I needed a bathroom stop so we found Andrea’s Café. This was a cute place serving German food and we had our tongues wrapped around their apple strudel. Well, they were out so we settled for marginal-tasting lemon cake and excellent coffee. We felt the place had become run down from what we remember from our long-ago visits; maybe it was just the time of day or maybe it really isn’t as good as we remember. A short ride and we were back at our RV Park. We truly enjoyed this scenic drive and all the natural wonders and beauty it offered.

We had dinner at home and caught up on a few other chores.