Trail Ridge Road Opening Weekend

Equipment at the Alpine Visitor Center

We missed the first day of the Trail Ridge Road opening, but we drove up the next day. This has become a tradition of our family to drive over to Grand Lake opening weekend. We stop and act like tourists at all the overlooks and play in the snow. If it’s not too snowy my husband runs up Heart Attack Hill, which this year it was blocked off. We did stop and play in the snow at Poudre Lake, it was way over my kids’ heads. As we dropped down after Poudre Lake we kept our eyes peeled for moose along the Colorado River and luckily we found a group of cars stopped right before you turn into the village. As we drove we talked about how the landscape has changed with the mountain pine beetle damage killing so many Lodgepole Pines. There are large clearings where the park service has removed diseased trees for the safety of campers. We ate at the Sage Brush Inn, they have great food and service and the girls love to throw peanut shells on the floor, each other, other patrons, the waitress-if you have kids you get my point. Afterwards we grabbed some world famous ice cream at Grand Lake Chocolates and walked down to the lake to eat it. The kids played in the freezing cold water at the lake until their lips were blue and it was time to head back home.