Serenity and the Transition to Tourist Season
Serenity Overwhelmed with an Invasion of Tourists
The snow had continued to fall gently welcoming a new winter morning. I looked out the window toward Longs Peak. Big flakes had been building up leaving a half foot or more of white covering the ground. Stepping out my front door, the air was crisp. Not cold but crisp.
Heading for the Fall River Entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, the road was quiet, the mountain retreats were nearly empty, and I flashed back to a moment, years before. On a September night as I’d passed these condos, a reddish-phase black bear had been sitting on a dumpster likely smelling the original Bob and Tony’s pizza box discarded by a tourist.
Reaching the park, the fresh snow created a sense of serenity, and I was at peace. Around me, bright green pine needles supported piles of soft white snow, and I knew I was in a wonderland. Not Alice’s, but my own winter wonderland. The wonderland I had grown up with, visiting annually back when this resident had been a tourist.
I knew that come Memorial Day weekend, the serenity would be overwhelmed with an invasion of tourists. I too had once been a tourist (or in my case, a touron) riding the gondola lift to the top of Prospect Mountain.. Back then, at fourteen years old, I celebrated with the sweet flavor of the Colorado Cherry Company’s cider.
As a high school kid at the YMCA Camp, I’d climbed a small mountain. It was my first summit. I sat on top, picked up three pine cones, and taught myself to juggle. Throughout life, I continued juggling for friends, my sons, and eventually the beautiful giggling of my grandson.
As a young adult in the late 1970’s, I had hitch-hiked from Estes Park to Steamboat Spring for my first backpacking adventure. I caught a ride over Trail Ridge Road on a flat-bed truck driven by a hippie and his long-hair friend. While they laughed away in the cab, I was unprepared. Dressed in a tee-shirt and hiking shorts, I froze my tail end off in the open air of the flatbed. We submitted the road at 12,183 feet in a thirty mile an hour wind. Brrr!!!
I remember the time I saw an elk tucked into a formation of rocks, resting as tourists took pictures. When I developed the picture, I learned that I had not taken an elk, but a very big mule deer buck (I now know the difference). Somebody laughed at that story asking, “When do the deer turn to elk?”
A couple of years later, after summiting Old Fall River Road, I met my first moose on the trail to Green Mountain where he scared this touron into hiding behind a slender tree. As he passed by only feet away, fear and intimidation were real. The moose had violated the 120 ft. rule by about 110 ft.
Discovering Sprague Lake, I turned around looking back to the west. Spellbound, the water was crystal clear as the continental divide and Hallett Peak reflected a mirror image into the lake. It was an unexpected moment as a rush of awe shivered through me.
Not knowing any better, I hiked to Dream Lake and Lake Haiyaha in blister building tennis shoes balancing with a wooden stick of aspen I’d picked up along the trail. At Haiyaha, the lake captured my amazement with its natural blue beauty, but my legs took three days to recover.
Eventually, with my young sons, I played miniature golf, lost a race at the go-carts, and splashed in a water pool of the Big Thompson River. Like I had, they began to think of Estes Park as the place they had grown to love. Today, they continue to return to their mountain home.
I now guide tourists on our RMNPhotographer Tours. I smile at their naivety, mistakes, and silly statements knowing at one time in my less educated life, I had said and done the same things.
So when the tourists of 2025 slow the traffic on the loop, I think of my own growth from tourist to local. It took me sixty years to get here, and when I finally arrived, Estes Park welcomed me.
So as the summer tourists arrive this weekend, like me, it may change their lives. I know the serenity of winter is giving way to a congestion of tourists, and I smile knowing they are entering a world of dynamic wildlife, incredible scenery, natural beauty, and a town full of people welcoming them.
And who knows…as it did for me, a few days in Estes Park may just change their lives.
