Planning a trip to Rocky Mountain NP on October 20th...

Fake snow is only found at ski resorts.

Mcasan - when do you plan to be there?

MCAsan wrote in post #15085286
Surely in Colorado you do not not call that "a snow"? I have gotten more out of manually defrosting a freezer.

I just hope the RMNP roads are all open next week.

It definitely is snow. Is it a lot of snow? No. But saying Denver didn't get ANY snow at all is wrong.

Anyway...Trail Ridge Road is closed right now. It may stay that way for a few days, who knows. Other than that, the main road to Bear Lake should be open and everything from the alluvial fans area to there should be fine as well.

CDOT for road conditions --

http://www.cotrip.org/​roadConditions.htm

Be advised --- E470, which you'll run into driving out of the airport, is a toll road and there is NO toll booth along this stretch of road. For a crummy $2+change toll fee it ended up costing me $8 as we did not know there weren't any toll booths, so we could pay. Besides the cost of the toll, the rental car company (National) tacked on their own fee when CO billed them for the toll after taking a pic of our rental car's license plate You can avoid this by taking 70 East while heading up to Estes Park or register your vehicle prior to driving on the toll road.

https://www.expresstol​l.com/Pages/Home.aspx

That's a good point. DIA is my principal airport and when I drive home I leave the airport on the main highway south (Pena Blvd), which curves to the west. A few miles down this road is Tower Road. I take it north. A few miles north on Tower Road leads to 104th Street, where I turn left to head west. About 10 miles on 104th takes you to I-25 northbound (pay attention; I-25 sneaks up on you in a hurry once you pass Washington St). You can then take this to US 34 at Loveland and head west straight to Estes Park and RMNP. No toll roads on this route and it's pretty fast to navigate. If I-70 isn't busy then it may be faster (I've never taken that route), but if it's congested then the route I suggest is much better.

A big fire broke out today. I was on my way back from Black Lake and came over a ridge and there it was. Keep you eyes on that story.

Tony-S wrote in post #15100753
A big fire broke out today. I was on my way back from Black Lake and came over a ridge and there it was. Keep you eyes on that story.

Wow.... near Black Lake? Bummer. That is such a beautiful hike. I've hiked up on the shelf above the east side of the lake and sat with binoculars watching the tiny people on top of Long's Peak looking over the edge several thousand feet above me. I hope it doesn't do too much damage to that area. The Mills Lake and Glacier Gorge canyons are some of the most picturesque parts of the park.

Hopefully the OP will get the chance to drive Trail Ridge Road, but if not, or even if he does, here's a teaser. Pano taken near the Alpine Visitors Center in September last year:

rocky mountains have been great! miss that place so much

So, Are you there?

Just got here. Heading out in the morning. Will report back tomorrow.