CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 78 km one-way ride from near Estes Park, about 1 h 35 of riding. The stops in between: Many Parks Curve, Rock Cut, Alpine Visitor Center and Milner Pass. The highest point is about 3,600 m. Alpine Visitor Center and Milner Pass are open in summer only - check it is open before you set off. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
For about 18 km this is Trail Ridge Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
The ride follows Trail Ridge Road for 30 km.
Elk wander through the streets of Estes Park in autumn as if they had a lease on the place. During the rut, in late September and October, bulls bugle on the lawns and golf course, and visitors line up with cameras at a respectful distance, while the town itself, sitting at around 7,500 feet in a mountain bowl where the Big Thompson and Fall rivers meet, carries on with its cafes, fudge shops and outdoor stores. It is the eastern gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park and the starting point for Trail Ridge Road.
Read the complete Estes Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Estes Park is where the day begins. Next is Many Parks Curve.
Many Parks Curve is a hairpin on Trail Ridge Road with a viewpoint so good that the engineers who built the road clearly wanted you to stop. From the overlook, at roughly 9,600 feet, the land opens up below like a book: the broad, flat valleys, which early settlers called parks, lie in a row with forested ridges between them, and beyond them the Continental Divide rises in a long line of snow-streaked summits. The word park in this part of Colorado means a high, open grassy basin, and from here you see several at once.
Read the complete Many Parks Curve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Many Parks Curve comes up about 11 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rock Cut.
Rock Cut is a place where the road runs into a cliff and the cliff loses. The engineers blasted a deep trench through a ridge of ancient Precambrian rock here, high on Trail Ridge Road at more than twelve thousand feet, and the trench left steep walls on either side, with the highway squeezed between them. You stop at the car park nearby, climb a short paved path and step out onto the alpine tundra, with the world dropping away on all sides and the wind pulling at your jacket.
Read the complete Rock Cut write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 29 km into the recorded legs you reach Rock Cut. Next is Alpine Visitor Center.
The Alpine Visitor Center sits at about 11,800 feet, near the high point of Trail Ridge Road, and it feels like a base camp on the roof of the park. The building is a stone-and-timber lodge with a cafeteria, a gift shop and a view out across the alpine tundra to the peaks of the Never Summer Mountains and the Continental Divide. In clear weather the air is brilliantly sharp, and in poor weather the building is a welcome shelter, with the windows rattling in the wind and the smell of hot coffee and soup inside.
Read the complete Alpine Visitor Center write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Alpine Visitor Center, about halfway at 3595 m. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Milner Pass, mostly downhill.
Milner Pass is where Trail Ridge Road crosses the Continental Divide, at 3,279 metres, and it does it so quietly that you could miss it. There is a modest sign, a small parking area, and a little tarn called Poudre Lake lying right beside the road. Rain that lands on the east side of the sign heads for the Cache la Poudre and eventually the Platte; rain on the west side ends up in the Colorado. Standing there in a riding jacket, still ringing from the climb, it feels like a very large idea for a very small place.
Read the complete Milner Pass write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Milner Pass sits at 67 km, late in the day. You lose 316 m on the way down to it, steadily. Next is Grand Lake, mostly downhill.
Grand Lake is the largest natural lake in Colorado, and the little town on its shore is the western doorway to Rocky Mountain National Park. At around eight thousand seven hundred feet, it is a village of boardwalks and wooden storefronts, with canoe rentals, ice cream shops and souvenir stalls strung along the water, and it is surrounded by dark forest and high peaks. The lake is cold and deep, and the surface is often dotted with sailing boats in summer.
Read the complete Grand Lake write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 78 km.
Estes Park → Many Parks Curve is 11 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Many Parks Curve → Rock Cut is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rock Cut → Alpine Visitor Center is 13 km. This is the part worth slowing down for - look through the bends and use the pull-offs.
Alpine Visitor Center → Milner Pass is 7 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Milner Pass → Grand Lake is 30 km. Brakes and eyes forward; the views are behind the corners, not in them.