Bob and I set out early Friday morning to catch the sunny skies along the Timber Ridge Drive through the Rocky Mountain National Park. Years before we had driven from the opposite direction, so now we can say we've done the loop. The drive took us to the top of the world at over 12,000 feet!
Everyone paid heed to the speed limit and to the steep sides -- not a guard rail in sight! This time the only wildlife we came across were human, before we shared the road with a herd of elk at the highest point on the drive. Lots of cars were parked at the many trailheads that lead deep within the Park. One that I would like to do is hike to the headwaters of the Colorado River.
Being so high reminded me of the last time I flew from Afton to Santa Fe and we cut through the southern Rockies at 13,500 feet below the ridge lines of the peaks. The valleys were wide like a freeway routing us to the high desert of New Mexico.
Throughout the drive we were struck by mountainside after mountainside of beetle bark infested lodgepole pines. Although, I had read an article in the Grand Lake Magazine that highlighted how the lumber companies and developers are using the timber - and designers like the blue gray color of the wood. Upon entering the town of Grand Lake there is mountainside filled with piles of 'leftover' timbers, looks like a village of tepees, from the logging of the diseased trees close to town.
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