Rocky Mountain National Park requires a bear canister if you’re camping within the park. Carrying two extra pounds is for suckers, so most of us thru-hikers just hike the whole section in 1 day. It’s only 23 miles and it starts right in the town of Grand Lake.
Since the section is also a big loop, we left most of our gear in the hotel room with the intention of hitchhiking back when we reached the road. (More on that later.)
We started extra early today so that we could beat any potential rain and thunderstorms. It was a peaceful time in the park with almost nobody else there.
As the trail climbed up towards the tree line I was stopped in my tracks when I saw a massive elk just sitting next to the trail. Cuddles and I approached slowly and gave it a wide berth, but it barely even moved its head to follow us. I was worried it was hurt because it wasn’t running away.
After passing the elk, we waited on the switchbacks above to see what our friends reactions would be. They were just as surprised as we were, but the elk did eventually stand up as they got closer. It was good to know it wasn’t hurt, it just didn’t feel threatened by us at all.
Up above the tree line the trail was gorgeous. We’ve spent day after day up here but for some reason the National Park just feels a little extra incredible.
A constant theme of today was the massive burns we hiked through. In Fall 2020, two huge fires made their way into the national park and closed lots of the trails. Today we were able to hike most of the CDT, but the two miles connecting our near loop to the road were closed.
There was an alternate trail we could take to the road, but since we were headed back to town, we simply connected another trail back to the beginning. Three years ago I did a trail run that went used that little two mile section to make a loop, so I’ve actually done the whole trail now!
It was nice being back in town and not having most of my gear made today’s hike pretty easy. Getting a full meal was also awesome. Tomorrow we’ll try and hit the road early so we can make our way to Steamboat Springs.