Driving Mountain Roads

I love to drive. New roads are my favorite. New mountain roads are a joy to drive on. I love going up and down hills. Switchbacks? Love 'em. Hairpin curves? Love 'em too. The roads through Rocky Mountain National Park were fun to drive on. Estes Park is seven plus thousand feet above sea level. The Trail Ridge road through the park is the highest mountain pass road and tops out over 12 -almost 13 thousand feet above sea level. As we drove we saw a sign that said we were 2 miles above sea level. Later we saw another sign that said we were 3 miles above sea level. The Toyota Yaris was a fun car to drive and handled the mountains well. My only complaint was the seat belt. The belt crossed over my larynx and felt like it was choking me. Sometimes I put the belt behind my back because it was so uncomfortable. If I was wearing a sweater or a jacket, I could tuck the belt below some fabric and be comfortable. Without extra layers the seat belt was a problem. Here is a photo I took out the driver's window as I drove up the mountain trail road. The mountain trail is a special road because it's not paved and goes only one way - up. When you start out at the park entrance, we were in meadows and Ponderosa pine forests with big fluffy trees, wide straight streams, and tall grass. As you go up the meadows and tall grasses disappear. Pines dominate the hills with quaking aspen poking out in yellow here and there. The streams move faster, curve more, and have rocks poking out of the water.Higher up the aspen disappear and the streams flow really fast and wiggle back and forth like snakes. This photo was taken at almost the end of the tree line. You can see these trees are alpine - slower growing, darker in color, and sparse. Eventually the trees get only a few feet tall and grow only in the protection of rock formations. Some shrubby trees had needles only on the protected side of the branches and trunks. Ahead are the tundra hills and some patches of snow. To the left is a cliff. There are trees on the cliff but it is very steep. The switchbacks on this road were especially fun. You can't see around the corner. As you drive you notice huge ruts in the roads on the corners. I tried to drive on top of the ruts but you gotta keep going and keep turning. My Toyota never bottomed out and I was surprised because I took that mountain trail road twice. There is no room to pass on this approximately 8 mile road. There were a couple pull off areas where cars could park. One one switchback curve I saw a woman standing in the road. I thought, "Seriously? This is where you want to be standing?" What I didn't see is that she was standing and watching two men change a tire on a yellow jeep. What an unfortunate place to get a flat! The other park roads (Road number 34 and road number 36 were wider, paved, and had two-way traffic. But they were fun too. I took those road a half dozen times at least. What I could not understand is all the bicycles on that road. There are no bike lanes. I would often have to wait behind a bicycle until the traffic cleared and I could get past them safely. Now, tell me, who would want to bicycle up the highest mountain road on the state of Colorado? These people are crazy? I can't think of worse conditions to bicycle! Coming back down would be fun but not biking up. I could see getting a ride to the top and then biking down but these people were biking up the mountain on a narrow road, often in the rain. All the bikers wore those Lycra biking outfits and helmets. Most of them had very good muscle definition in their calves. Sometimes I envied the motorcyclists going up and down the mountain but not once did I envy a bicyclist.