Western States Day Three: Arrival at Morraine Park

Crazy Horse

Our intent the next morning was to head out of the Black Hills to the west by way of the Crazy Horse monument farther down the road. If you're not aware, the monument, also being carved out of a mountain, is a private, non-profit undertaking (no Federal funding) that began in the mid-20th century and will eventually be the world's largest sculpture, at 563 feet high. By way of comparison, the faces on Rushmore down the road are about 40 feet high.

Fuck me? No, fuck YOU!!

I was heartened by the number of visitors to the monument (each of whom were paying a hefty admission price that will help support continued building of the monument), and then discovered that the site also plays host to the Indian Museum of North America, and the Native American Cultural Center, two attractions filled with art and artifacts of North American Indian history (and, of course, the requisite gift shops). I also saw the book, American Presidents: American Indians (which, I should note, I have now checked out from the library and am reading) again, as well as this super cool map showing the historic locations of many of the tribes of North America. Alas, we were on a schedule and had to hit the road again, as we were to make CO before dark. Back into the car and off onto the byways on our way towards the great, windswept, cowboy state of Wyoming - which, by the way, reveals another thing about crossing the Missouri River. You start to see people wearing cowboy boots for a reason other than fashion which to me, as a Minnesotan, is downright exotic.

A LITTLE BIT OF WYOMING!

There's some pretty amazing natural places in Wyoming: the Bighorn Mountains, Medicine Bow National Forest and a little place called Yellowstone. But we were only to be skirting the western side of the state by way of Interstate 25. All the same, we were clearly in territory that was vastly different from where we originated. The high plains, literally. Open gates on either side of the freeway that can presumably be closed in times of snowstorm. Rest stops in vast, wide-open, wind-swept spaces. Distant, treeless rock formations. And an utter lack of cultivation. Then, as we approached the southern border of the state, I saw it off on the western horizon: what was almost certainly Laramie Mountain of the small range that bears its name. At 10,200 ft above sea level, not anything compared to the giants of its larger, western brother, The Rockies, it struck me quite powerfully as the first peak I'd seen since my youth that topped out over the treeline (about 9,800 in Wyoming), a full 3,000 feet above the highest mountain I'd seen in my adulthood (Harney Peak of the Black Hills which, incidentally, is the highest peak in the USA east of the Rockies and far, far older than any mountains outside of its own range, taller or otherwise). [Well, I guess I'd been in the mountains with a couple of friends (Pat M & Cory L) in 2006, but we were more passing through high-wooded ranges on our way elsewhere. Never above treeline, and never really in a position to do much "peak-gawking"].

One wind-swept rest stop and one Laramie Ultra on the horizon.

From that point on, it was another race against time as the day was getting on; the actual immense immersion of the full-blown Rocky Mountains seemed worlds away (in fact, a state away); and we really, really wanted to set up camp before dark. We continued on, speeding along at 80 mph (the speed limit, I've discovered, in pretty much every state west of my own). We crossed into Colorado, and it really took no time at all to reach Fort Collins. OK, now for one of the great realizations/ruminations of this trip...

Finally, Colorado

So: some of my closer friends know that my brother, who was 14 when I was born and who moved west before I reached kindergarten, basically just sought out liberal college communities in mountain states for the next 15 or so years of his life. Fort Collins, Boulder, Albuquerque, Corvallis. One of the very fondest memories I had that was drawing me back to the mountains was a visit to my brother during his time in Fort Collins. The haze of years (and me being possibly around 10 at the time) had me remembering Fort Collins as this little mountain town nestled among the peaks. I remember my brother telling me stories of the floods of the mountain streams wiping out Loveland (which, I assumed, was also nestled among the peaks). Even Denver (with its famed Eisenhower Tunnel through which I'd passed in the rain at breakneck speed in the dead of night back in '06), I'd assumed, straddled some high mountain pass, with various white-capped peaks at its very doorstep. What I now realized, as I sped through Fort Collins and slowly crawled through in Loveland (stopping at every red light in what seemed more like the world's longest strip-mall than an actual town), was that these cities were actually quite FLAT. Mountains still just a ridge, if a little higher and stretching, now, the length of the horizon. And then it struck me: Duh! Of course you wouldn't build a city IN the mountains! How impractical! I mean, maybe a resort community, like Estes Park (which I would soon see) or Vale (about which I am making an assumption). But not one depending upon trade & commerce, the ability to actually zone & build and deliver public services with some degree of normalcy. You build in the last flat space available before the mountains. Mind = blown. Or, at least, 34 year-held assumptions, falling away.

Anyway, it did take forever to get through Loveland, which was the point at which the road finally turned and headed directly towards Estes Park and the heart of the mountains, themselves. After a last bit of wide highway, we entered the foothills, inducing a series of memories: lying in the back of the station wagon as we weaved through mountain roads, my father (seeming infinitely wise about such things) establishing the notion of "foothills" and their relation to "mountains" and showing me how you can sometimes think you're just going straight along, but if you look out the back window you can see, in fact, that you are climbing up (try it: it works!). And then: a true mountain road. traveling along the fast-racing torrent that is the Big Thompson River. Bare-faced, rocky slopes that minutes ago were named "foothills" suddenly skying above to a height that I  didn't dare remove my eyes from the twisty road enough to see. Scattered homes wedged narrowly between stream & cliff for which people could not possibly have been able to secure insurance. We traveled along this way for about half an hour till things opened up into the valley that held little Estes Park with it's 5,000 residents and tourist population many times that.

Ah, Estes Park. I immediately sensed this little town was to become a battleground between my love of quaint, quirky villages and loathing of places overrun by tourists. But no time to ruminate. No time to slow down and ask a passerby (possibly in a British accent), "Excuse me, sir...But I've been having some trouble trying to locate a sweat-shirt that says "Estes Park" on it!" It was on to that last final destination of our journey: Rocky Mountain National Park.

When they say that Estes Park is right outside RMNP, they're not kidding. Literally, five minutes outside of town and you're passing through the main entrance on the east side of the park. Only a few more minutes and you're winding your way into the world-class campground of Moraine Park. Ahead of time, I'd been a little concerned about the immensity of the campground itself, as well as its innumerable electric sites and the certainty of 30'-40' RVs and their accompanying generator noise. But resource after resource had assured me "No, Morraine Park is great." I was often thinking, "Come on. I'm from Minnesota. I know great campgrounds." But it's no joke. Morraine Park is super. Just make sure that if you plan on tent camping, you choose something in the tent-only loop of "D," And you really want one of the sites on the far west side (and very specifically, you want either one of the two we stayed in).

As it turned out, we reached the campground at near dusk, so there was very little time to dick around. At least for the adults. We set about getting the tent up and getting supper started as the kids got out and began to explore our environs, which were amazing. We were within sight of one or two other campsites, but quite a bit back from the main loop, and nestled right up to one ridge of the moraine after which the campground was named. A just a few feet past our own private bear locker was a large rocky outcropping, perfect for kid exploration & down-time, and not a bad spot for a cup of coffee and some contemplation. The view below is this first site (which was to be our site for our first four nights there), with a view the opposite direction of the climbing boulder. You can see the start of the moraine of to the right, though the general steepness of its slop is not done justice in the picture.

Our Big Agnes Big House was made even more kick-ass with the recent addition of this vestibule.

Oh, and for the record: our campground was at 8,300 feet above sea level. Throughout the trip, it didn't seem to cause much trouble for any in the party. Maybe if you had a load in your arms and ran a bit with it, you might give a little "Whoo!" exhalation at the end, but that was about it. 

So, supper. And then night fell. And then a campfire. And that was that for that day.