Grand Tetons and Rocky Mountain National Parks

Travel Day - Grand Tetons National Park

On Wednesday I made the drive down to Gros Ventre campground at Grand Tetons National Park for a short stay. It was only 124 miles but the drive took me almost 3.5 hours. It was a lot of scenic backroads with good mountain views, and then one pretty large mountain to go over. Climbing the mountain is no problem, I’ve been really happy with how well my truck has handled the mountains so far, it’s had plenty of power to pull the trailer up them. Going down this mountain was a little more difficult though, it was a 20% grade with lots of twists, so it also had a 25 MPH speed limit. This meant riding the brakes all the way down, and even with a stop about halfway, I still cooked the brakes by the bottom. Oh well, I guess next time I’ll have to take multiple stops.

The Gros Ventre campground was large, but a lot of the campsites were pretty small. If I wasn’t able to hang six feet or so of my trailer off the back of the pad, my truck would have been halfway in the road:

I didn’t have any hookups at this campsite, which meant no A/C, and it was about 90 degrees both days I was there, so I spent both afternoons checking out breweries in Jackson, Wyoming.

Jenny Lake Loop trail

On Thursday morning, I got up and did the Jenny Lake Loop Trail. It was mostly a fairly easy 8.5 mile trail, but I did add on Hidden Falls, which added a little elevation: And I also went part of the way up to Inspiration Point, which added a lot of elevation: Even though it was only 10:30 AM, it was still very hot with no cover to Inspiration Point, so I settled for this first view and then continued on the loop, knowing I still had more than five miles to go. I’m glad I did, because while the views around the lake were awesome, there was a several mile stretch of the loop that was in direct sun too.

Travel Day 1 - Rawlins, WY

On Friday on my way out of the Grand Tetons, a herd of buffalo were crossing the street, holding up traffic: There was one straggler when I got up there:

The rest of the five hour, 270 mile drive was pretty uneventful. I stayed at a campground that was adequate for an overnight stay, and that was about it:

Travel Day 2 - Pine Bluffs, WY

On Saturday, I didn’t have a stop planned for the night, so I went back to Harvest Hosts and found a distillery, Pine Bluffs Distilling, to stay at for the night, and it was about three hours away, which was about halfway to my next stop. It was a great property, and there were probably ten other Harvest Host guests staying there for the night:

It was a nice tasting room, they get all their grains from farms within 60 miles of their facility, and they had a bourbon that was decent (for being made outside of KY).

Travel Day 3 - Estes Park, CO

On Sunday I made the remaining three hour, 129 mile drive to Estes Park, Colorado. I’ve got a tiny camp site, but it does back right up to the Big Thompson River, although it is more like a creek in this area:

Rocky Mountain National Park

Unfortunately Rocky Mountain National Park is doing timed entry permits this year, and I was not as on top of getting those as I should have been, so my permit didn’t let me in until 4 PM on Monday. I spent the morning following up on some things (insurance is back, and I found a mobile tech to look at my slide finally), but my truck also got hit while parked:

Not really sure what he was looking at because this wasn’t even close to getting past me without hitting my truck, even if he didn’t hit me with his fender, the trailer swing probably would have crushed my truck. He then got out and was mad at me for driving into the side of his trailer, fortunately there was a witness that saw the whole thing, and his attitude changed pretty quickly when he was told he ran in to a parked car. I’m hoping it is just cosmetic damage, it doesn’t seem to have caused any issues with driving the truck yet:

At 4 PM, I did go to Rocky Mountain National Park and get my passport stamped, and drive around a bit. There were a good number of deer and elk out:

Tuesday morning I got up early (for me) and did the Gem Lake trail, since I could get there before the park required entry tickets, and it actually turned out you don’t need entry tickets at all for this trail as access to the trailhead is from a public road instead of through the park. This trail was only about a four mile out and back, but it was tough because there was over 1000 feet of elevation gain on the way up. Plus the last half mile or so was all steps made out of rocks that were uncomfortably large, most steps were probably about 16 inches high. Gem Lake wasn’t much to look at: I would have been really disappointed if that was all you could see, but about halfway up you got some really great views of Estes Park:

I got back for my appointment with the mobile tech, unfortunately that was more bad news. In his opinion, the whole slide system needs to be replaced. The parts are three to four weeks out, and most dealerships are scheduling repairs months out, so it looks like I might be without a working slide for the rest of my trip. Once again I’m really thankful I picked a floor plan with two doors so I can still access everything, but wow that really sucks.