Picnic at Long Draw Reservoir, moose sightings and daily stuff

We have been really enjoying our fresh fruit in the mornings, either as an accompaniment to our egg breakfast or on top of our granola. I'd almost feel guilty gorging on these treats. Most days we have peaches, strawberries, plums, banana, and cherries - YUM! 😋 During the winter months we eat quite a bit of citrus, but summertime is the time for the exotics, lol.

So thankful for such bounty.

A few days ago we packed up a lunch and headed west "up" the Poudre Canyon with the idea of turning south on Long Draw Road to check that out.  The first stop was up by the Chambers Lake Campground, it's a large area with several nooks and crannies and it's very popular. It was a nice leg-stretcher stop, and pretty as well.

Picnic area next door to Chambers Lake.

A couple of local fellows were talking and one was joking about the  Colorado paint job on his car, later I discreetly took this photo since I mentioned hail in the prior post.

Ouch! So sad, but the reality of weather mayhem.

Anyway, Long Draw Road is a fairly good dirt road, that ends up just past Long Draw Reservoir, at La Poudre Pass, which terminates quite near the Continental Divide, @ 10,200'. 

Shortly after starting out we passed by this rivulet and flowers that was just so pretty.

Lots of rain lately has made this one "fresh".

There's a lot of beetle kill around which is sad to see, but still some views where things look pretty special. We saw several moose browsing around. My neighbor reported someone seeing 14 on that road once!

With these 2 and 1 napping in the shade,
plus 3 down the road, it was a busy day for moose

We carried on and came to this view.

And then this view of the reservoir with the mountains in the background.

This was late in the week and the disbursed campers were coming out to find a spot. At this elevation the air is cool and downright brisk overnight, perfect for camping out comfortably.

Setup down the way for some fishing lakeside.

And further up the road the view started to open up into a valley - very nice!

Our car in the foreground - what a view!!

We ate our lunch just down the way at the sign marker for La Poudre Pass then headed back the way we came. The sign welcomes us to the northern edge of Rocky Mtn Natl Park and the nearby headwaters of the Colorado River. Just south east is Rocky Mtn Natl Park proper and Estes Park. What a beautiful drive.

Whew, what a fun journey. The trip took probably 5 hours. Lots of great viewing but tuckered out by the time we got home. Luckily we had chicken alfredo leftovers on tap so that made supper easy.

On our way back east through Poudre Canyon we stopped at one of my favorite roadside creeks (I believe it's the east fork of Roaring Creek) and it was really running.

A shot of the Chicken Alfredo supper to finish. More food and fabric fun in our next post, you've had enough for today. Thanks for riding along and we'll see you next time.