Day 5 8-9-2005, Tuesday - 355 miles
After breaking camp at Curt Gowdy state park I continued on the scenic route to Cheyenne where I turned south to visit Mt. Evans and Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). I took the scenic route to Estes Park and before entering RMNP I headed south to visit Mt. Evans. The summit of Mt. Evans is 28 miles from the interstate with a fee station set up half way. The second half was an absolutely exhilarating experience and became more so the closer I got to the summit. One wrong move here and your last thought might be, "did I have term life insurance for my survivors"? (this could be said for a lot of the scenic routes in Colorado though). I then continued my sight seeing by viewing the area west on RMNP heading towards the city of Granby. Once I entered RMNP I had planned to camp at Timber Creek but it was raining so I pushed on. The rain and cloud thickness (fog for us low landers) got worse as I neared the summit with my hands getting so cold I thought it could have been late December in Texas. I ended up making camp at Moraine park on the east side of RMNP.
Click here to view pictures from Day 5.