My move to the Rocky Mountains!

[dirtyRU]

Random shots of our trip up & little day trips around this beautiful state. Love the Rockies!

Somewhere south of Amarillo or Lubbock, the hound dog needless to say is ready to be there.

Settling in to her new surroundings

Making it official!

Around town - Sunsetting over the Rockies & Lake Loveland. Very low as you can see, but apparently gets like this every year, then fills up after the snow melts in the mountains.

Tons of statues/sculptures around this place. These are my two favorite - The snowboarder & the fly fisherman

 

[dirtyRU]

For my father-in-laws birthday, we thought we would take hit out to Summit County & take a ride on the Georgetown Loop RR. Although a bit touristy, it was quite impressive! There's nothing that takes you back to being a kid than a ride on a real steam train

Going through the Eisenhower Tunnel to get there. For those who don't know, it's a 3 mile long tunnel that goes through the mountains & crosses under the continental divide at around 11,000ft above sea level.

Gettin' going

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FDz6oubrFk&list=UUrQXHuQCqVtHYZt7Zd5oAdQ&index=1&feature=plcp"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FDz6oubrFk&list=UUrQXHuQCqVtHYZt7Zd5oAdQ&index=1&feature=plcp[/ame]

Crossing the Devils Gate Bridge. Due to the elevation change over the short distance, they had to make the tracks corkscrew up and around the valley to get to devils gate. This was truly awesome!

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI8CIR45JL8&feature=relmfu"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI8CIR45JL8&feature=relmfu[/ame]

Making a pit stop at the Lebanon Mine

This was a little day trip we took up to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Behind me is the largest steam train in the world - dubbed "Big Boy"

This was taken of downtown Frisco, a little mountain town about 20 or 30 miles west of the railroad

more to come...

 

[Cañon Carver]

We will have to get together at some point and do a nice scenic drive or a 4x4 trip Some nice pics through there, glad to see you are liking CO so far.

-Jamie

 

[Kevin]

Love the Rockies too! Beautiful.

 

[ericstell]

Glad you.like it dirtyru glad to have u here . and carver is correct time to show you around to sum places where there are not too many folks.

 

[Darkanion]

 

[mr turbo]

Great pics dirtyRU
Looks like you're really enjoying the Rockies mate :ebiggrin:

Regards
Mr Turbo

 

[taza]

Wow, great pics of the awesome scenery mate! I'm truly jealous!!

 

[mr turbo]

I'm truly jealous!!

Ditto, you & me both mate

I also forgot to say that the train ride looks awesome

Regards
Mr Turbo

 

[carljwnc]

Awesome!!! Looks like your enjoying it already.:ebiggrin: Hope you like the snow.:iconwink:

 

[dirtyRU]

Another little day trip we took started about 30 miles in Rocky Mountain National Park.
All the Aspen trees were starting to turn to gold which made the views even more impressive. We started at the park entrance down in the valley, and made our way through the park, looking to tackle the trail ridge road - the highest contiuously paved highway in the United States, with much of it being over timberline (11,000ft-12,100ft).
I thought at those elevations, the forry would be suckin hind handbag, but she did alright!
With the sharp curves, straight downward drops with no guardrails, the speed limit is only about 35mph, so the 45 mile trip to Grand Lake takes a while!

Headin down the mountain into Estes Park - awesome little mountain town that holds the gateway to the park.

Blurry, but a nice outline shot of the Stanley Hotel, which is the hotel that is famous for inspiring the sthephen king book & movie "The Shining".

Fall colors lighting the road up into the park

A nice Aspen turning by one of the look out areas

Timberline is not far away

Another awesome lookout point

Def above 12,000 ft here. Looking out at some of the "glaciers" still alive in the park hidden in the other peaks.

Rocky Mountain High fo sho

Down on the Grand Lake side of the park & the continental divide, we made our lunch by this little lake with tons of critters running around. Beautiful spot & somehow managed to get a cell signal there when my wife got the call about getting a job at a much better place than what she was originally going to do.

This was the only grove of Aspens we saw like this, coming down the mountain on the grand lake side. The colors were insane to say the least. Sorry for the blur, this grove was probably close to a mile away on the other side of the valley

Nice shot of a bull elk that was wondering right by the road

 

[dirtyRU]

After completing our rountrip voyage of the trail ridge road - took nearly 5 hours, we made our way back to the entrance of the park. Elk were bugling down in the valley floor, so we thought we would take a little dirt road to see if we could find any without all the other tourist around. This happened to be the "Old Fall River Road". I soon found out that it was only one way & we were going up switchbacks, making our way up higher and higher along the mountainside.

Here's a shot i'm quite fond of looking straight up the mountain side.

This was the kind of driving i liked . My wife wasn't too happy as it was getting dark and we had no idea where the road was taking us.

Then we saw this way up on the mountain and realized real quick where we were heading. It was the alpine visitors center which sits at about the halfway point of the trail ridge road! This meant we had to drive half the friggin TRR again! Talk about tiring....

Whats better than one Elk? 2 Elk!

Here's a quick shot of the TRR i found online of when the road usually opens in may/june. They usually have to unbury it from nearly 20' of snow every season! Hell of a task if you ask me..

Was a long day but got to see some beautiful country not far outside my own front door

 

[ericstell]

Lucky man

Great Picts matt .I love all those places .trail ridge is awesome .I use to deliver food in Estes park great place .very happy ure happy about being here .I can't wait to have more than one Subi join us on sum explorations .

 

[NachaLuva]

Awesome pics. That really is some amazing country, totally unlike anything we have over here & you managed to capture it really well

 

[mr turbo]

Geez dirtyRU, you are so lucky to have such a beautiful area to visit

Those lookouts are magnificent & the colours of the flora are just magic

Regards
Mr Turbo