There was Snow in June

In June of 2004, my husband and I took a trip to New Mexico and Colorado. I, being from the Southeast, did not expect snow to be anywhere trees can grow in June. So imagine my surprise at the amount of snow that can be found when we reached Rocky Mountain National Park. The park was our last major stop of the trip. We entered through Estes Park and had a nice drive through a beautiful deep and narrow canyon. We then proceeded to a parking lot where we could board buses which would take us to Bear Lake. Here were my first signs that things were different here. I attributed the patches of snow around the lake to the deep shade of the trees. From Bear Lake we walked a short distance to Nymph Lake, which is really no larger than a pond, but it is beautiful all the same. There are several more lakes along this route, but it was at this point that I officially wimped out. Having hiked into the Black Canyon only two days before, I really wasn’t up to walking, especially at such an elevation. I live at an elevation of about 500ft, and the park is around 10,000 ft, which is a pretty significant different. It doesn't help that I was in pretty poor shape at the time.

We returned via bus to the car, which fortunately hadn’t been broken into by any wandering bears, and we drove to the portion of the park that is labeled Moraine on the map. Here there is a museum, but we only had one day in the park, and we were much more interested in the parts that were outside. The Moraine is a beautiful valley, with an abruptly flat bottom, through which small streams lazily wind. The field is alive with prairie dogs, and we were delighted to see several elk laying in the grass as well.

After this we headed for trail ridge road, which crosses the alpine region of the park. As we turned onto the road, we passed a snow plow. For some reason, I failed to question this. As we drove along we noticed very long narrow wooden poles, such as could be used for pole-vaulting, standing upright along either side of the road. Eventually, we cam upon the reason the poles were there. There was snow, and it was deep. I would say 3-5 feet along some portions of the road. My speculation is that the poles were there so the plow, and possibly cross country skiers, would know where the road was. Yet still, my feeble brain didn’t really consider just how very cold it must be, especially as we were now in the "Alpine" region. We stopped at an overlook; I believe it was the forest canyon overlook. The view was awesome, but the marmots on the rocks a few feet below the railing were stealing the show by playing and “talking” too each other. After they all retired to their burrows, we got back in the car and continued on, finally arriving at the alpine visitor’s center, which was absolutely covered in snow. Inside we found a souvenir Christmas ornament, a real aspen leaf, eaten away so it was only the webbing, and dipped in silver. This began a tradition of leaf ornaments. We continued along the road, finally descending at the other side of the range.

We made a stop at the site of the old Never Summer Ranch. In a field to the right were dozens of elk, possibly a few hundred, though I have no basis for that number at all. They were a good distance away though, so we felt fine following a trail back into the woods. Along the way a red wing blackbird caught my attention. It flew into a stand of brushy young trees growing in some standing water. Among these trees were three moose. They were what looked like a bull and two cows. Though we were pretty close to them, they never looked our way, allowing us to comfortably watch them for some time. Back in the car, we continued down the road just a short distance when we noticed several cars pulled over, so we did likewise. The attraction was two male elks with large racks, which were relatively close to the road. A man there told us he had heard that there was a baby moose down the road somewhere, but he hadn’t seen it. Excited, we got back in the car and continued on our way, but we saw nothing either. We pulled in to turn around at the coyote valley trail head. There was the baby. Just 15 feet of the parking lot, in a small hollow full of bright new green grass was an awkward little moose calf! It was trying very hard to rub its head on a stick on the ground. It would lift one end of the stick until it was vertical, and then try to scratch its head on it, knocking the stick over. Mama was just a few feet away in the edge of the trees. She was eating, not the lush green grass, but the twigs off of the small trees. Because we were so close, we stayed in our car leaving it in drive. After we had our fill of watching the baby and getting some wonderful video footage, we returned the way we came, to head across Kansas on our way home. This park was just spectacular. My only regret is that we should have come a little later, because there was still one road in the park, a one-way rustic road to the alpine visitor’s center, that was still closed at our time of visit. I had a great time here, the views are terrific, and there is so much wildlife everywhere. I highly recommend it. A+