The weather gods remained with us for this final ride of the trip and heading north to Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park it was the start of another fine day.
We chose to start in Estes Park, ride the Trail Ridge Road and leave the park at Grand Lake before heading down to Granby and joining up with the 40.
Those that know the park will also know that parts of the trail ridge road are over 12,000ft and this of course makes for some spectacular scenery. In places you can see snow banks and the visitor center spends quite a big chunk of the year snowed in. Personally I love high country like this, I live in a mountainous part of the world myself but this is so different, its wilder somehow. Again, being almost beyond the end of the bike season in Colorado we did not see too many other bikes with the exception of a couple of guys on Touring BMWs at the Trail Ridge Road visitor centre who warned us about bad weather heading down this way from the north but by then we would be back across the Atlantic.
We chose to start in Estes Park, ride the Trail Ridge Road and leave the park at Grand Lake before heading down to Granby and joining up with the 40.
Those that know the park will also know that parts of the trail ridge road are over 12,000ft and this of course makes for some spectacular scenery. In places you can see snow banks and the visitor center spends quite a big chunk of the year snowed in. Personally I love high country like this, I live in a mountainous part of the world myself but this is so different, its wilder somehow. Again, being almost beyond the end of the bike season in Colorado we did not see too many other bikes with the exception of a couple of guys on Touring BMWs at the Trail Ridge Road visitor centre who warned us about bad weather heading down this way from the north but by then we would be back across the Atlantic.
The final hours of our road trip were quite spectacular also. The drop down from the summit of the Trail Ridge Road was just as picturesque and twisty as the climb up, and, after refreshments at the roadside cafe near Grand Lake it was off on the last leg back to Denver. The route via Granby was to take us back up to 11,307ft via the Berthoud Pass which offers superb views of the Rockies and at this time of year, with the autumn colours, made it a fitting tribute to the end of our ride. Dropping back down into Denver to a lowly 5300ft gave me time to reflect on a great bike trip and one of the best holidays I have ever had in the US.
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