Day 74 (July 27). RMNP & Laramie

From: Georgetown, CO

To: Laramie, WY

Miles today: 220

Total miles: 15129

With the Colorado equivalent of “beach traffic” cleared out, it was an easy trip on I-70 east to US 40 west, which starts west and then turns north.  (To go north around here you have to go sideways a lot).   US 40 rises and falls over another pass going north, and by this time I had lost track of which side of the continental divide I was on.  Just past the town of Granby, US 34 east breaks off (due north!).  This is one of two roads that takes you through Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), and clearly the more popular one. I didn’t really appreciate this until today, but RMNP isn’t someplace you go, like Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon, but rather someplace you drive through; US 34 is that route. No trucks are allowed on this route, but the tourist traffic was very heavy.  It is well-managed, however; there are lots of roadside pullouts to take pictures at, as well as to get out of the way if the line of cars behind you is too long.  On the whole I estimate that the traffic moved at about 40 mph. 

At one of my many stops along this route as I climbed and climbed, I came across a nice view of a “tree line” or a “timber line.”  For those who haven’t seen one, there is an altitude on high mountains where trees can’t grow anymore due to cold or other conditions.  It is not a true “line,” of course, but it is a lot more abrupt than you might think.  Here is a photo.

The Tree Line.  US 34, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.

I have been in high mountain ranges before, but despite all my trips to Colorado on business I had never been up in the Colorado Rockies before (or at least before my stay in Aspen a few days ago).  So this may sound a bit dumb or naïve; forgive me.  The Rockies are really high!  Between the ranges of snow-covered peaks and the almost ethereal effect of the Alpine Tundra, I really did get that sense of being at the top of the world.  I know this is a bit like saying the ocean is salty, but it was really cold and windy up there too!   The quantity of my fellow tourists impacted my ability to feel like an early mountain man (although there were plenty of trail heads along the route for those who wanted more isolation), but even so it still felt like I was on the moon; this was not a place where humans could really live without some serious support.  This was not a high valley, like what I drove through in the Canadian Rockies; this road went over the tops of some of these mountains. Spectacular views.

RMNP.  The foreground is Alpine Tundra, background is the Gore Range.

The top of the world.  Lots of "Fourteeners," lots of my fellow tourists.

The road itself was well constructed, but still almost terrifying: two lanes with two-way traffic, no shoulder, no guardrail, and all you could see past the road edge was the next mountain rising up ten miles away.  One section was right along the ridge, and I felt like I was riding on one of two lanes of asphalt suspended a mile in the air; the cross-winds aided in this effect.   After spending a good 10-20 miles along the top, the road descended and descended to the town of Estes Park, which I take to be the American equivalent of Jasper or Banff in Alberta.

 It turns out this was only about half-way down; more descent until I finally hit the eastern edge, where towns like Denver and Colorado Springs are located (still at a mile-high elevation).  Here I picked up US 287 and followed it north into Wyoming and the town of Laramie.  I had expected the driving to be much calmer down here on the “high plains,” but I had forgotten about the winds, which vary in amplitude but are always high, and always (it seems) at right angles to the direction of travel.  It took a lot of effort to keep the cycle between the yellow line and the shoulder.  Nonetheless, the scenery was quite remarkable in its own way.  I thought that eastern Wyoming would be a lot drier, with sagebrush and the like, but it was all grass.  Having said that, the soil is very thin here, and you can see the same red sandstone I have seen for a thousand miles now sticking up in places.  The land is undulating, and there is always a mountain range in the distance.

The High Plains of eastern Wyoming.  US 287, south of Laramie.

Cool image of a front.  No rain, but lots of wind gusts.

Laramie today is part college town and part railroad town.  It got its start when the first transcontinental railroad, the Union Pacific, came through around 1868.  The town was located where it was because there was a good crossing of the Laramie River there.  Unfortunately, it is not down in a river valley like Whitehorse; between the cold and the wind, the place is basically uninhabitable in the depths of winter (though of course there is no choice).  After experiencing the wind in summer, I can imagine what it must be like in winter.  A guy in the bar who had lived there off and on for 30 years told me he had never gotten used to it.  (The bar, by the way, was called The Library.  Their motto, on their awning as well as T-shirts and coffee cups is, “Don’t lie to your mom, tell her you’re at the Library!”)

Old downtown Laramie, two blocks from the railroad.