Training Log Archive: Nadim

Rocky Mountain National Park, CO. From the Old Trail Ridge Road, Peggy, Max, and I hiked up to Marmot Point. The dirt road up had lots of great views. In several places the road had been blasted out of sheer cliffs. There were many sharp drop offs right next to a gravel edge. The hike started steeply but didn’t seem too hard. Samantha made a fuss right at the start so we let her wait in the car. It was windy and cold enough to need a jacket. I wore pants too. We heard a siren and saw a helicopter while climbing. There were some marmots to be seen too. At the very top the wind was stronger but the 360 views were wonderful. We could see the Apline Visitor Center slightly below our elevation (somewhere around 12,000ft.). I was convinced that the view we got was much nicer than the one we’d have gotten from the high point next to the Visitor Center up the paved stairs.

After getting back to the car we saw a second helicopter go over to the Visitor Center and land. We had to wait in line 20 minutes just shy of it because they were using the parking lot for a landing pad. At the Visitor Center finally, we relaxed and got to some things. We never found out the reason for the emergency aircraft.

Rocky Mountain National Park. From the Trail Ridge Road, Max and I hiked to Mushroom Rocks and a little further. Peggy stayed with Samantha who was feeling sick. This was nice, but still very windy. We both felt the altitude climbing but not so much on the way down. Max, Peggy, and I had hiked this 4 years ago, just before we’d gotten Samantha from China.

On the drive down we saw 2 elk. 4 years before we’d seen a herd. We learned to find out that it was becoming more common to see the elk in Estes Park than the National Park. We ate lunch in Estes and Samantha felt much better. Of course w did more shopping. Samantha bought a stuffed dog.