#Gates50States

We’ve mentioned visiting our good friends in Nebraska back when our family was traveling between the Black Hills of South Dakota and Denver. Jenn and I had an opportunity to visit again, and this time we squeezed in some Rocky Mountain National Park hiking as well as our first visit to Scottsbluff National Monument.

Estes Park received its first appreciable snowfall of the season the evening we arrived, and thankfully the roads weren’t in bad shape for us. We awakened to several inches of soft snow the next morning and a beautiful sky under which to hike. Any semblance of warm temperatures were not on their way at all.

We chose Deer Mountain because the trailhead was close to where we were staying and we wouldn’t have to get into any of the permit-required places. Despite the deeper snow, it was pretty easy to follow the trail. We thought it would be especially easy to follow the trail on our way back, but the wind was so great it drifted the snow and covered our tracks within ten minutes! We’d dressed for cold weather, bringing a variety of warm gear to suit the occasion, but our fingers were still freezing. Always be prepared!

We enjoyed a good dinner with friendly bartending at Bird & Jim for the third time in a couple of months, and lunch at the Dunraven on a beautiful sunny afternoon after our freezing hike.

In our attempt to squeeze every last minute out of our time in RMNP before sunset and nautical twilight, we wandered down Trail Ridge Road with no real plan and knowing eventually we’d get to the point of closure. But after just a few miles, we spotted a handful of elk grazing down in the valley beneath the road. There was no place to stop the car, so we kept on driving. Until just around the bend there was a pull-off! We’d had good success hiking from the road and seeing wildlife in Yellowstone before, why not give this a try? Not even a quarter mile down the hill and over a bluff, we found them. I didn’t have my big lens with me, and they let us get pretty close. We stayed until we couldn’t feel our fingers, then we headed back to the hot tub at our condo.

Between Estes Park, CO and Alliance, NE sits Scottsbluff, NE & Scotts Bluff National Monument. We needed to get some activity in and kill some time on the way, so we pulled into the parking lot and asked the ranger if climbing to the top was possible given the high winds the region was experiencing that day. After getting the green light, we bundled up again and headed to the top of this truly unique land structure.

For you, the reader, I have two questions…

First, where is your favorite place to winter hike in the RMNP?

Second, can you name a fun, adventurous stop you’ve made while driving from here to there in the United States, a place you hadn’t necessarily planned on visiting at the outset?