Tag Archives: adventure

Oct 5 2020

Exploring Rocky Mountain National Park

I have a new respect for great youtubers and bloggers and I will no longer complain or make fun of a vlogger who did not have the most engaging post.  It is hard work to have an entertaining post!  We have been on the road for nearly 6 months now and my goal when we first started was a video/blog a week.  Being on the road, much of this country has dead zones with zero cell service, which makes editing and posting blogs and vlogs on YouTube and WordPress difficult if you are trying to be consistent!  After traveling 100-150 miles in a Sprinter Van, setting up camp, cooking, cleaning, hiking, biking, and/or paddle boarding, many times I find myself just wanting to enjoy a beer and the view and not jumping on my computer to write or video edit!   I have found myself not posting for several weeks or even getting my computer out, which is not good if you are trying to create a following.  You must have consistency with vlog/blog postings every week.  I also did not realize how much work it is to create a good video and the frustration of right before compressing your video(that you spent 50 hours editing) that your audio for one part was bad and hard to understand and need to decide do I: redo the video, do a voiceover, just add music or say oh-well and post the bad audio (I’ve done all but redo the full video, which is not good if you are trying to create great quality- sorry to those who would like us to redo the Boldt Review Video!).  I have decided I probably won’t get to be the quality level to get great sponsors but hope these will be helpful for your travels, help newbie RVers not to make our same mistakes or be great virtual explorations if you can’t get out to these wonderful places.  This week’s post won’t have a video but just photos.

This week I’ll be sharing our adventures at the Rocky Mountain National Park.  We were considering skipping this park since it is so close to Denver and we have been trying to avoid huge crowds but I am so glad Greg pushed us to change our minds.  Currently, with COVID19 Rocky Mountain requires you to have a timed entry permit or a campground reservation or arrive before the park opens at 6am.  This is fabulous and made this one of our favorite places to visit, as there are about 60% less people in the park right now!  The only two campgrounds are open (Moraine Park and Glacier Basin) and only half of the campground is open for social distancing requirements.  Even if you go on reservation.gov and see no campsites available, I suggest calling the toll-free number (877-833-6777) and sitting on hold for 45 minutes as several people cancel last minute and this is how we got our two-day campsite reservation.  We stayed at Glacier Basin in Loop B, if you can get Loop C that is the loop with the amazing views and a chance to see Elk and Moose in the meadow if your neighbors can be quiet and not run their generators. 

We entered from the westside, which I recommend as only 20% of park attendees come from this entrance, most come from the eastside-Denver Area.  We camped the night before at Lake Granby at Stillwater Campground, which is a fun paddle boarding lake.  We decided to stay here instead of boondock since a big thunder and windstorm was expected for the late afternoon and we didn’t want to get our van stuck in sand.  There were a lot of fisherman and plenty first come first serve campsites next to the lake.  We left early the next morning 5am to hit the park to see wildlife.  We were able to see moose, elk, prairie falcon, peregrine falcon, marmot, ground squirrels and golden eagles.  There was plenty of room to stop at every pullout and interpretive trails and hiking trails.  All morning we only saw 3 cars until we got to Deer Ridge Junction when you get to the intersection of 34 and 36 the eastside and westside.  We stopped at the EndoValley Picnic Area which is the end of 2 way.  We were going to bike the Old Fall River Road which is one way the road is a gravel dirt road and pretty narrow, not something you want to attempt in your camper van unless you are a great backroad 4X4 higher clearance driver.  It was already 90 and when seeing how close cars/trucks come by you on the trail we decided to turn back on our bike ride.  After stopping at Sheep Lake, looking for our Bighorn Sheep (none were out) we headed to our campground before the big thunderstorm hit again in the late afternoon.  This campground also had an RV dump and water fill area, which was great! 

The next morning, we headed out early again at 5:45am as I wanted to hike to Dream Lake to watch the sunrise.  Note RVs greater than 21 feet need to park before you get to the Glacier Gorge Trailhead there is a parking lot RVs could fit under 25 feet and a couple pull outs after Bierstadt Lake Trailhead right before Glacier Gorge. Note: There is a sign that says RVs greater than 23 feet should not go beyond the Park and Ride across from Glacier Basin.  We did not notice this so when we got to Bear Lake we were asked to leave that our rig was too big (we are 23 feet). Greg went back to the campground and I did the hike by myself and I would take the shuttle back to the campground.  There is a free shuttle but it doesn’t start running till 730am.  I highly recommend taking the shuttle, remember to bring your mask it is required to get on the bus. I got there just in time to take the trail to see Bear Lake, Nymph Lake, Dream Lake and Emerald Lake and watch the sunrise over Dream Lake.  It was beautiful but a lot of traffic!  The parking lot was almost full at 6:15am and the Glacier Gorge Trailhead parking lot was already full.   As I returned to Bear Lake Parking Lot, I decided to take the Alberta Falls Trail and then return to the Glacier Gorge Trailhead and take the shuttle back to the campground.  The campground has water and an RV dump.  We then took Highway 7 out of the park and the backroads to North Glenn as we head to Florissant Fossil Bed National Monument.  We decided to stay at Cracker Barrel for the night but there were several great boondocking spots along the river on highway 7. 

Advice if you go to the park:

  1. Enter through the Westside, only 20% of visitors come this route
  2. If camping at Glacier Basin campground stay in Loop C
  3. Do sunrise hike to Dream Lake
  4. Use the free shuttle, make sure to bring a mask or you can’t get on!
  5. Bring your bike/e-bike to travel through the park makes it much mroe enjoyable
Jul 22 2020

Summer Travel Help Us Find the Next Mountain Town and Visit McCall, Idaho

So, we just returned from McCall, Idaho area and returned to our beach house in Newport, Oregon to repack.  We decided to remove our Ram Mount table to give us more room to move around and for Bode to stop hitting his head (we haven’t missed it at all yet, it would be cool if we could store it up top on the rack and have an exterior mount).  We brought the inflatable stand-up paddle-board and loaded up the Trasharoo with some firewood.   We dropped off the winter gear and just have summer wear in two cupboards.  We also fixed my mess up, when I put in the locking hitch extender backwards where the key was up against the toe hitch and couldn’t be unlocked.  So I got to spend 45 minutes hack sawing it off and wasting $50.  As an engineer, I will never live this mess up down.  We now have a 11inch hitch extender which makes it a lot easier to access the Trasharoo while our electric bikes are up.

During our trip to the McCall area, we loved all the forest service campgrounds that were inexpensive $15/$7.5 Access and Gold Pass holders.  The area is beautiful and paddle-boarding, kayaking, mountain biking, trail running and hiking galore!   We had a great time at the Tamarack Resort, they were super nice and as we tour several units to decide if we wanted to live in a ski resort community they allowed us to boondock in their parking lot.  Greg did some awesome mountain biking and Bode and I headed for the trails to run.  Check out our video to see the area and the places we stayed.

We are now headed North to Washington State to check out Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainer, Okanogan- Wenatchee National Forest, Wenatchee, Methow Valley, and Sandpoint, Idaho.    We are excited to visit Greg’s Niece and Nephew and do a few mountain bike rides in Issaquah, WA.  I am also excited to see a few ex- Microsoft friends- yes, we will be social distancing outside when we meet up😊.

Our first stop on our northward migration was the Blue Heron Cheese Company in Tillamook, Oregon.  We are using our Harvest Host membership here.  We found having a membership with Harvest Host- we have listed a 15% discount code that you can use to join has been helpful as we travel around  the West Coast.  These are farms, vineyards and golf courses who welcome you to stay a night for free, in exchange for their hospitality, Harvest Host asks you to make a small purchase in return.  Such as, a bottle of wine, some produce, happy hour or play a round of golf.

From here we are headed to Mount St. Helens.  Greg was twelve years old when she blew her top and he watched the eruption from the top of Mountain Park in Lake Oswego when he was growing up.  I was in Texas and only five years old so it wasn’t so memorable for me.  We are excited to boondock and hike around the mountain.

This is where all our viewers and readers come in.  As we have discussed several times, Bend has become a little over run with more than 3 million visitors each year.  We are looking for the next mountain town.  We love to cross country ski, back country ski, snowboard, hike, mountain bike, snow shoe, snow biking.  We are looking for a smaller town, less people, 2-8 acres.  So if there is a mountain town you want to see or you live in a mountain town and want us to come see you or your area, suggest in the comments below where we should go.  If we pick the town you suggest, I will send you a surprise!  So help us find our next home and our travels for this Summer.  We hope you enjoy this short video about our travels in McCall, Idaho and suggestions of places to stay.

Don’t forget in the comments section below, please tell us what Mountain Town you think we should visit this Summer and live.  If you live there and want to meet up (social distancing) please let us know you can email me at ranebendor at gmail dot com.