Colorado, we have missed you

 September 19, 2025

Before we left home, we made sure to reserve a timed entry permit for Rocky Mountain National Park; however, there were no campground vacancies available in the park.  We checked before arriving at RMNP, and there was a cancellation, so we were able to camp one night in the park among the bugling elk.  We had to wait a few hours in Estes Park before our timed entry at noon and heard bagpipes . . . an observance of 9/11 by the local fire dept. was happening across the river from the visitor center.

Early the next morning, we used our reserved entry to drive out on Bear Lake Road

and hiked the trail around the lake just as the morning sun lit up the mountains.

Memories flooded in of our hike with our kids around this lake about 30 years ago.

I remember our kids standing on a big rock along the shore so long ago.  I don't know if this is the same one, but I am now calling this "Kissell Kids Rock."

Next, we drove across the park on Trail Ridge Road to the Alpine Visitor Center.  We hiked slowly up what is nicknamed "Huffer's Hill" to the best place I could think of to release the last of my sister's cremains that I had with me at 12,005 feet elevation.  It was cold and windy with lots of people on the trail. (Note: two days later, the road was closed for a while due to snow. Good luck with our timing.)

We exited RMNP at the west entrance and spent two days camping in the national forest at the southern end of Shadow Mountain Lake.  From there, we drove over Berthoud Pass and through the town of Frisco with a nice local history park.  Some of the trees were wrapped in knitted "sweaters."  We continued on to Breckenridge where we found another Dambo Troll.

Berthoud Falls 

10th Mountain Division Monument

Our campsite at Gore Creek not far from Vail

Gore Creek behind our campsite

One day, we drove through beautiful Glenwood Canyon to Glenwood Springs.  We didn't pay big bucks to swim in the huge swimming pool there, but did find a small hot springs not far from town.

Grizzly Creek enters the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon

After leaving Gore Creek Campground at first light, we drove south from Vail on U.S.24 - "Top of the Rockies Scenic Byway" and made a stop at Camp Hale National Monument, established in 2022 and under the management of the US Forest Service.  During WWII, 1000 buildings were constructed there for the purpose of training the 10th Mountain Division in preparation for fighting in the mountains of Italy.  Not much to see there now, but broad expanses of sagebrush in a flat area between mountains.  Again, we love watching the morning sun light up the mountaintops.

After leaving Camp Hale, we stopped at Tennessee Pass and learned more about the 10th Mountain Division. It was reactivated in 1985 at Fort Drum, NY.  This was of interest to us because our oldest son was stationed there before his deployment to Iraq in 2009, although he wasn't 10th Mtn. Div., but military police.

To wrap this post up, I want to quote John Muir (again):

        "Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find that going to the mountains is going home, that wildness is a necessity, and parks are fountains of life."

                                                                            Our National Parks, 1909