Towards the end of April, we spent six days helping our son and his family move into their apartment near Boulder, Colorado. The weather was wonderful…sunny skies with temperatures in the 70’s.
Since we were so close to Rocky Mountain National Park we planned to go into the park after we helped them settle in. It was another beautiful sunny day when we arrived at the park.
After orienting ourselves, we took a short hike, on snow-packed trails. I’m glad we had our hiking poles because there were several slippery spots.
The next day we decided to hike the Old Fall River Road at a higher elevation (the peak the elevation is 11,796 feet above sea level but we did not hike to the peak.) The Old Fall River Road is closed most of the year…it is only open July through September. The road leads to a side trail down to Chasm Falls which you can access when the Old Fall River Road is closed. When the road is open there is no room for hikers on the narrow hairpin-curved road.
One July, years ago, when we were in the park with our two sons we drove this one-way road up to the peak and across to the other side. It was spectacular scenery.
We did bring warm clothes on our trip because we know weather can change anytime in the mountains, and we did need them on this cool and cloudy day. In the morning we bundled up, parked the car, took out our hiking poles and started up the 1.3 mile hike to Chasm Falls.
We were the only ones hiking on the road that morning. It was fun to have the wide road all to ourselves. It is an easy hike because of the wide road and because it is hard packed gravel. As we began our ascent, it started to snow…and it snowed all the way up to the falls and continued to snow all the way back down, to our car. It felt like we were in a snow globe. It was beautiful and dazzling and a memorable hike….walking in Rocky Mountain National Park in a snowstorm.
The next day we woke up to eight inches of snow. We did go back into the park for the third day, just to drive around, and we saw a lot of animals this time…maybe because the animals were easier to spot in the snow. We saw a fox, turkeys, three moose, lots of elk, a beautiful blue bird, and several magpies.