Colorado Walkabouts

Hiking, Biking, Camping, Four wheeling

Fall River Road

Published by Carl under on 7/25/2009 09:31:00 PM

We drove up Fall River Road for the first time this weekend, heading to the Chapin Creek trailhead to do some hiking.  Fall River Road is the old route through RMNP before Trail Ridge Road was built.

The road starts at Endovalley, in Horseshoe Park.  Fall River Road is a narrow, winding dirt road; you cannot take RVs or trailers on it.  Because it is so narrow and there are so many blind corners the road is only one-way; you have to take Trail Ridge back down.  There are some curves so sharp that you have to stop and back up to get around if you don’t set it up correctly from the beginning.

Despite all of this (or perhaps because of it ) Fall River Road is a fun drive. We were able to comfortably go at about the 15mph speed limit in the Hummer, but many cars and SUVs were going much slower through the ruts and around the corners.  All of them were courteous enough to pull over in the wider spots to let us pass.

In the lower, forested section of the road we saw plenty of wildlife.  Several times we had to stop to get around groups of marmots in the road.  They appeared to be chewing on the rocks in the road for some reason.  At point we also saw a snowshoe hare bounding across the road.  They’re primarily nocturnal, so we were lucky to see one.  It had its full brown summer coat on.

Shortly before tree line we got the the Chapin Creek trailhead and parked to hike Mount Chapin.  When we got back we continues our trip up the road.

After we got above tree line we didn’t see any other animals, but the views of the surrounding peaks made up for it.

Once we made it up to the Alpine Visitor Center we turned out onto Trail Ridge Road and headed east toward home.  A little way down the road there was a group of elk causing a traffic jam from onlookers.  A park ranger was having to stand in the road and direct traffic to keep it moving.

We had originally planned to stop at Rock Cut and hike the short trail there, but it was mobbed with tourists so we kept on going.  As we headed down the road we got a few last glimpses of Mount Chapin and the Mummy Range before we left the park and headed home.

View all of the pictures: Photo Gallery

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