2010 Day 9 July 25 RMNP Mt. Ida

Day 9 July 25 RMNP Mt. Ida

Short Aspen Sun Flower

Today we are taking a high elevation hike up to Mt. Ida. This is not an official trail, but if you ask any Park Ranger in RMNP they will tell you this is their favorite hike. We were also encouraged to do it during the weekend as there is road construction on Trail Ridge road and you could be stuck in traffic for a long time during the weekday.

Open trail above tree line

Rock scrambling

We started our drive early enough to beat the Trail Ridge road traffic. We made the drive up to Milner’s Pass in an hour. The trail starts up about ¾ to a mile in woods. Then 3.5 miles of trail out on the tundra. Views are abundant. The flowers are all tiny miniatures as they are suspect to the winds up on the tundra. Aspen sun flowers seen last week which were 30 some inches tall are now maybe 5 inches tall. Phlox was in full bloom everywhere. The last ¾ mile of this trail to Mt Ida just stops. This is where the work begins. We begin a rock scramble up to the top of Mt Ida. This is quite jarring on the body. You have to take four steps stop look and plan out your next four steps and so on. This is where all of the core, leg strength and balance activities really pay dividends. (I would like to thank our Personal Trainer Jamie for coming up with new and innovative ways to work on core and leg for the 10 weeks before our trip. We really needed it.) You have to stay focused and in the moment to make sure you do not slip or fall. A slip or fall would mean a broken something as most of the rocks have a sharp edge on them.

Standing at the false summit looking at the real summit

We have read about this hike and know there is a false summit. We know about phase summits and they can be a big arggg in your day. We believe we are on the right path to the summit. We have stopped and chatted with two backpackers and a group of five 20 something hikers who said Mt. Ida was just ahead. What they should have said was take a more lateral approach as you are headed to the false summit.

Sure shooting after picking our way to the top of what we think is the summit we are 200 feet short in elevation and off by a half a mile. Arggg. Well, for sure we now have it in our sights as there are people on top basking in the sun and taking in the views. They must have been way in front of us, as we never saw them trudging along on the tundra. Since we had a gps and topo map, I think we could have avoided the false summit, but that is all behind us now. We sit on top, eat a whole lunch, swat some mosquitoes and watch the incoming dark clouds. I think we are on top about 15 minutes before it become clear we should get going. We have a long rock picking section to get down before we even get to the trail across the tundra.

Standing on the Real Summit

The temps drop, the wind picks up and we have to slowly rock hop before we can fast track it down the trail. We make it to the woods with a big sigh of relief. As we are fast hiking down through the woods we come across two large Bull Elk grazing 20 feet off of the trail. Big rack as is 7 x7 and 7x8. We stood and watched these gracefully large animals. How they manage with that rack is shear brilliance. I think of the weight of the rack and the bulk of it. But these creatures move as if it were nothing.

Can you find the Ptarmingan hen?

Hello Big Boy!

Start counting the rack!

When we are finished we make it back to the car and drive up to the Alpine Visitor’s Center. While we have been out on the trail, people have been busy driving up to the top of RMNP and seem to all be at the Visitor’s Center at one time. I am not familiar with being by so many people when on vacation. The place is packed. There is shopping available up here, but with all of the people the shopping is not relaxing so we get back on the road to head home. Well, we try to get back home. The road is packed with slow moving cars! I think we will never come this late on vacation again. No need to worry about driving too fast today.

9.5 miles, 2130 feet elevation gain, 5 hours and 50 minutes, 1868 calories burned. 88.4 Total Miles hiked