We sadly left Custer State Park under a gorgeous brilliant blue sky. We really enjoy the vibe and the surroundings of this place so it was hard to say goodbye. Wanting to avoid the interstate as long as possible we took the back roads out of the Black Hills and into Wyoming. It was fun to see the lush green long views into the distance after being in the evergreen forest. It became abundantly clear when we hit Wyoming as the landscape flattened out and the population was about one person for every 500 miles. We drove by several working ranches and saw cowboys rounding up the cattle, which helped break up the drive. As we left the flatlands of Colorado and headed up toward Rocky Mountain National Park we enjoyed the dramatic flow of Big Thompson River thru a scenic rocky gorge. We finally came into Rocky Mountain National Park at about 3ish and were lucky to get one of the last 3 campsites in the entire park! That’s the good news. The flip side is that we are camped at Glacier Basin Campground which has been devastated by the pine bark beetle. The campground has been completely cleared of every tree and we are basically in a basin, which feels like it’s been hit by a bomb. (See today’s pic). What a difference trees make! This is so unlike camping at most national parks. That goodness we are at a high elevation with a cloud cover or we would be cooked by now. The pine bark beetle is really changing the landscape of our forests. In Custer Park the devastation was also really noticeable by the vast amount of dead brown pine trees. The beetle has really hit this entire park hard. Thousands upon thousands of the dead brown pine trees mar all of the scenic vistas. Apparently, this is a phenomenon that happens about every 500 years. The specific forests of Rocky National Park that was first hit by this beetle, about five years ago, is beginning to reemerge with Aspen trees. We figure that by the time our grandchildren view this park it will look vastly different. Once we settled into our camping spot we jumped on one of the park shuttles and checked out a couple of the Visitor Centers. We were particularly impressed with the Moraine Park Visitor’s Center and enjoyed the interactive displays on the geology, weather and fauna of the Rockies. Unfortunately, we missed the movie that was playing at the Beaver Meadows Center, but hope to catch it tomorrow. There’s a program tonight at 9 pm at our campground entitled, “Large Carnivores”, which we’ll probably go check out. Right now chicken is on the barbie, a glass of wine is being poured and we’re hanging out with all our fellow bomb victims.
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