It was sunny and beautiful and Tuesday. She was at the point in her trip where Astrid usually thought of her children (if they weren’t with her), her cats and home, and felt a little homesick. But remembering home added a heightened awareness of the garish contrasts of the landscape around her. The differences were the attractions; sheer-rock cliffs instead of sand bluffs, water rushing down mountain sides instead of lapping sandy shores, Stellar’s Jays instead of “regular” Blue Jays, snow-streaked black mountain peaks instead of shadows of big cities, ravens instead of crows.
To reduce car pollution, traffic and parking problems, some national parks provide shuttle service within the properties. Astrid and Bjorn had used shuttles in Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and this time, in Rocky Mountain National Park. They drove to a very large Park and Ride lot the first thing that morning and joined a queue of excited hikers, then squeezed onto a bus that took them up the mountain to Glacier Gorge Trailhead.
The Glacier Gorge Trail was the plan for the morning, with stops at Mills Lake and The Loch. Astrid and Bjorn traipsed through dry sparkly-dirt paths through pine forests, on hot, rocky, high ledges, crawled over boulders and over snow covered trails to chilly, sparkling mountain lakes for a round trip of 6.6 miles, fighting the wind every moment. A pleasant mountain view surrounded them at every turn through the whole hike.
After a mid-day nap, and dinner, they forced their little, cigarette-smoke-smelling Jeep Liberty rental up the mountain again on Trail Ridge Road, past herds of elk, to where the Tundra Communities Trail started at 12,090’. It was a short paved path, bordered with little cushions of tiny tundra flowers, and no shelter except a grand pile of boulders at the end, which looked like the ruins of a giant’s castle. At the top of the incline was a vista point worth spending some time at, despite the cold and buffeting wind. Astrid could see the snowy tops of the surrounding mountains and the black of the mountain lakes formed where once were glaciers.
Looking at the map of RMNP that night, Astrid sighed. “This park is so big, we hardly did anything here.” The Glacier Gorge and Bear Lake Trailheads were the most interior into the park a car could go, the trails took a hiker a little bit further in, but from a map’s-eye-view, it still wasn’t much. If one really wanted to see more of the park and the many mountains within, it would take long hikes, possible even back-country camping to see it. But if there is a mountain, man will want to climb it, it is in his nature. And sometimes he won’t make it back.
***
The next day, after packing up and checking out of their Estes Park abode, they took breakfast on the go, ate at the shuttle Park and Ride lot of RMNP, then rode the shuttle back up the mountain and followed the Emerald Lake Trail to Lake Haiyaha, and Dream Lake, a “moderate” hike, over a rocky trail with 800” elevation gain. It was a fitting, last hike in RMNP, with all the Rocky Mountain elements from the previous day: rocky trails, snow, boulder crawling and sparkling blue mountain lakes.
There are fifty-eight (depending on your source) mountains in Colorado over 14,000’ high. They are often referred to as “The 14ers”. Astrid and Bjorn were going to the top of one–probably the most popular of them all: Pike’s Peak, which is measured to be 14,115’. But much to Astrid’s chagrin, they weren’t hiking up. (In reality, the 13.5 mile hike would have taken more time and energy than she had.) They weren’t driving up either, but taking the train, Pike’s Peak Cog Railway, which was nice change. With just a few minutes to spare because of slow traffic in Manitou City, they pushed through a crowded train to squeeze into two facing window seats (assigned), just in time for the ride up the mountain.
The ride up the mountain started with a track through a forest, then opened up to bare tundra pocked with marmot-topped boulders. At the top, snow was still obstructing steps and parts of the visitor’s center. It was cold, windy and a little crowded. They walked around the visitors center, and Bjorn got a donut (a popular treat there). Raven was there, of course, playing in the updrafts and souring to unfathomable heights. Then they rode the train back down. Pike’s Peak, done. The view from the top was notable, but it didn’t leave a corresponding impact on Astrid. Maybe because she didn’t “earn” it, didn’t hike up. But she still appreciated the trip. What she would remember for a long time whenever Pike’s Peak came to memory were the couples sitting near them on the train.
She couldn’t help overhearing the conversations, but the two couples–strangers before the ride–spoke like old friends the whole way up, and again down the mountain train ride. As well as finding plants, animals, birds and geography extraordinarily interesting, average Astrid often found her fellow average humans fascinating.
One couple had kids (but not with them) and loved going on baseball stadium tours. The wife’s mom had planned to go to Pike’s Peak, but had died before she could. The wife was a nurse and was going back to work after time off to mourn her mom. The trip was in tribute to her mother.
The other couple had dogs, but planned to have kids in the future. Both spouses ran marathons, despite not having runners’ builds. The wife, an only child of a very involved mother, was a family law student, the husband, an occupational therapist … or a PA. The husbands had much less to say in the fascinating conversation.
All the while, Bjorn and Astrid were quiet, exhausted from the hike in the morning and mentally taxed with the stress of the drive and the almost-missing-the-train, which always raised tensions. On the way back down the mountain they were a little underwhelmed, and happy to sit quietly and learn about other people’s lives in passing.
Before turning in for the night, they took short drive from Pike’s Peak to preview Garden of the Gods, scoping out good sunset or sunrise photography sites.
Not I 