Rocky Mountain National Park (part 1)

The same procedure applied as the previous day: pick up at 7.45am, although this time the driver didn't make it until 8 o'clock with all the traffic and the roadworks.

Like yesterday, there were about 25 people on the tour altogether.

Today we headed out west again, but soon diverged from yesterday's route.  We had a separate driver and guide today, with James doing the driving and Dave doing the talking.


As we headed in to the Rockies, we drove through some narrow canyons with fast-flowing rivers.  The rivers are too low now for white-water rafting.

Of course, you're starting from a mile high anyway, but we climbed higher it didn't take long until we neared the tree line.  This photo was taken at Berthoud Pass at 11307ft, which was one of many superb photo opportunities that we had throughout the day.

Granby Lake

We crossed the Continental Divide 4 times during the day, so we did go up over the passes and then down into the next valley - even though the valleys were still very high up!

Our next stop was at a large lake, Granby Lake.

This is a very large lake, part of the solution for maintaining water supplies throughout the year.  It is part of a system of reservoirs, some man-made, some natural.

Many of the lakes in the Rockies do not permit water sports or sailing or even fishing.

However, here there were a couple of sailing boats and further on a reasonably-sized marina.

As you get higher, the wind gets stronger.  Here, it was creating waves even on this lake.

As you can see it was a lovely sunny day, which was fortunate as some of the best views are lost when the clouds come down.

Grand Lake Lodge

Our lunch stop was at a more normal lunchtime of midday, at Grand Lake Lodge.  The lodge is a pretty wooden building, with a (heated!) outdoor swimming pool, lots of hanging baskets and a view over Grand Lake, as its name suggests.

Grand Lake is another of the lakes in the reservoir system, and the lodge has superb views out over the lake.

Despite the name, the Grand Lake is actually the smallest of the three of Granby Lake, Shadow Mountain Reservoir and Grand Lake.

The lunch was a small buffet of self-built caesar salad, chicken marsala, roast beef, with roast potatoes too.

I shared my table with two Japanese men, a lady from Canada, and a lady from New Zealand.  There were other British ex-pats on the tour, and others from all around the USA.

 We had a lot more time here that we really needed, with 75 minutes allowed for lunch.  Although, it did allow time for taking more photographs at a leisurely pace than the sometimes frenetic procedure of jumping off the coach, taking some pictures and jumping back on again that we had at some of the viewpoints.

Whilst the pine trees don't drop their leaves, we could see some of the aspens changing colour, more of them the higher we went.

At this point, we haven't actually entered Rocky Mountain National Park yet - we're still just on the outskirts.

Continued in next post ..