Amy and Pat Taylor

After our long bike ride up Old Fall River Road yesterday, we were looking for an easy to moderate hike today to get us out on the trail.

In our heads we were both thinking 4-5 miles at most. We settled on the Colorado River Trail on the west side of RMNP. We decided we would hike out as far as we felt like and then turn around and return. Part of our reasoning for choosing this trail was because it is Moose habitat and a volunteer had told us that he sees moose on this trail 50% of the time. We really want to see a moose! Also, we thought it would be pretty following along the river. Well, No Joy on the moose.

It is PERFECT moose habitat, but we started late morning and the day was heating up. The moose had retreated to the cool forests. It was a pretty trail. I would call parts of it enchanting with the trail winding through the evergreens...the wildflowers. We did see a young mule deer who paid us no mind. The trail twisted and turned, and went up and down. We saw the river in the beginning, but steadily climbed away from it as we went on.

We crossed over several tributaries. At some point, we should have turned around. But there was a place on the map called Lulu City, next to the river's edge. We knew nothing about it, but somehow it became our goal and we hated to give up. We really should have checked the map more closely to see how far it was. We finally reached a trail sign that said we were only 2/10s of a mile from our destination. We were pretty high up and we knew we had to descend to the river, which the trail immediately began to do on switchbacks. We knew we'd have to climb back out on the return. When we got to Lulu City, all that was left was a sign that noted the location of a settlement of 200 people from 1879 to 1884. 5 winters was how long it lasted.

It started to sprinkle on us so we took shelter with a couple of locals under a huge evergreen. We had our snack of apple, nuts, and banana chips. After about 15 minutes we checked out the river....yep, this just has to be a favorite place of a moose! Then we started the hike back. Uuuuuup the switchbacks, and then up, down ,up , down ,up , down...it had gotten very warm, and although this trail has a good amount of shade, those sunny stretches started to get downright hot. While we were climbing the switchbacks, I started to get a migraine...my left eye had a pretty good aura going on. But we kept going and I kept drinking my water. The aura only lasted about 5 minutes, but I had a slight headache the rest of the hike. I'm pretty sure I had some altitude sickness. We were at 9000+ feet...even though we were in a river valley! We gained 800-900 feet in elevation (maybe more with all the ups and downs) during the hike.

The last couple miles (we hiked a total of 7.5 miles) were tough. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Pat kept trying to take my pack, but I wouldn't let him. It felt like giving in to me. I wanted to do it. When the parking lot finally came into view I gave God the glory! I have never seen a prettier parking lot, lol! Pat had to drive us back up and over Trail Ridge Rd and on to our campsite. Probably 1.5 hrs. I was EXHAUSTED. I even slept part of the ride back. When we finally got back to our campsite, my sweet husband heated some chicken chili while I had a shower.
It was a good night's sleep!Leia mais