How wonderful to be in Rocky Mountain National Park again! Also terrifying, at least for an acrophobe like me. I’m going to push back on the use of the word “irrational” in the definition though. As my fellow acrophobes know, we fear heights because we want to jump, or fall, or drive over the edge. We know it’s inevitable, even alluring, and also that we have to resist, which is hard.

Of course we are also scared when someone else is driving, which may be a little irrational.

I really am glad we were able to drive 25 or so miles of the Trail Ridge Road. Around every bend, one views oceans, fields, immensities of mountains, from near ones with discernable, rocky textures, to remote ones, a smear of hazy blue. There are 126 named peaks, 60 of them over 12,000 feet high. If you like mountains, and I do, the beauty and majesty are breathtaking.

The road is another matter. Peaking at over 12,000 feet itself, I would characterize it as despairingly twisty and primarily sans railings. There are opportunities to drive over the edge and plunge to certain death roughly every 50 feet. We did not try Old Fall River scenic drive, a one-way (up), 14′ wide unpaved road with drops on both sides which I surely would not have survived unless anesthetized.

I made the mistake of driving for TRR, for a short while. It was an excellent cardiac workout and also exercised my vocal cords. It felt like a video game in which I had to keep the car between the yellow line and the white line while ignoring the heart-stopping precipices, but for real, no respawn.

We also took a hike to lovely Emerald Lake, a hidden gem; saw a lot of elk, many hanging around our hotel grounds; and checked out the source of the Colorado River. The weather was balmy, even after dark. My husband and I made quite a few friends in the hot tub, a first for us. Ok that sounds weird, but it was quite a Midwestern group so no.

Happily we were able to make the most of our two days because we drove there. We had been at Lake Tahoe (6000′) for four days then Salt Lake City (4000′) for two more just prior, so we were well on the road to being acclimatized when we arrived at Estes Park (7500′).

This landscape earns its cliches, so I haven’t bothered to edit them out.