Dave and I got up too darn early (in the 5am hour...ugh) to drive to Idaho Springs. Our goal - riding Mt. Evans. He's done it many times, it was to have been my first. Though up early, I really looked forward to it.
Fate had different plans in store for us though. You see, one day a year there is a race up Mt. Evans. And on this day, the road it closed to cars and non-participants. We could have gone part the way up with 15,000 other cyclists. Mad house! So the 1/365 chance we hit - no riding Mt Evans for us. 
Instead, we drove to Granby and decided to ride Trail Ridge Road to the top in Rocky Mountain National Park (elevation 12,183). The reverse of this ride was what we were going to do on the Bike Tour, but we got wintered off of it. 
It turned out to be great fun. Good weather, and we saw all sorts of critters. We saw moose, elk (very close!), birds - including a Red-Tailed Hawk that was so close we could have touched it, squirrels, etc. Many up close. The ride was 80 round trip with almost 6,000' in total elevation gain (this counts the rollers). Bummer.
The top was a madhouse! So many cars, tons of people. It was absolutely crazy. And both on the way up and back down, there was a complete traffic jam in the road. Why? A moose. Admittedly, it was a big pretty moose but what a gaggle of people! Pretty funny we saw him on both the to and fro part of our ride. 
We grabbed a fair number of photos of the good time. Fun ride...maybe Mt. Evans next time? 
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