Fort Collins thru Estes Park

Stew suggested a nice route from Sherod's - up back highways from Evergreen through Estes Park (Hwy's 119 -> 72 -> 7), then finally down to Fort Collins (Hwy 34 to Loveland). I took a "wrong" turn on 7 near Raymond, so I got a picture of this reservoir:



The concrete on this dam looks aged.









A lone tree:



I didn't need to work too hard to point my auto-timer from the luggage rack on my LT:






Starting down towards Estes Park Valley, there was this stunning church in the mountains (look at it's foundation):




I think this was Echo Lake, and (from the same parking lot) a look down into the valley of Estes Park:




I wanted to plan a day ride from Stew's, so I stopped into Rocky Mountain National Park Info Center. It had been raining heavily the weekend preceding, and you can see the snow peaked mountains. A ranger the road was open, but can drift over night. He suggested coming late morning to avoid possible icing - once the sun comes from above, this is no longer a problem.

He also suggested an unpaved road for next day's trek. At first I balked, but after checking with Stew and rangers close to the cutoff, I took it (see later posts).

This is along Hwy 34 heading towards Loveland: