19 May 2019 Stanley Hotel

We woke to cloudy skies and cool temperatures. After watching our church service on YouTube, we headed out for our Sunday Mexican fix at Casa Grande. Leslie wanted to go to the Stanley Hotel, where parts of the Movie “The Shining” were filmed. It’s an elegant hotel that was built in 1914 with beautiful views of the mountains. We pulled up the driveway and stopped at the guard shack where we learned that it was cost us $10 per person to walk thorough the lobby and another $10 for parking. Ridiculous!! We decided we did not want to see it that bad and turned around. Since the hotel is along the US34 into the park, a different entrance than we had been through so far, we decided to take a drive into the park. The forewarned winter storm had not arrived yet, so we stopped off at Sheep Lake to look for Big Horn Sheep. They are seen more often on the rocky slopes above the lake than anywhere else in the park. But none were to be seen today. We continued on and took the side road to Falls Creek Road. Falls Creek Road was built just after the park was inaugurated, 1916-1918 and follows Fall Creek, one way, up to the continental divide and eventually runs into Trail Ridge road. But it does not open until early July due to snow. 

Along the open paved portion of the road, lies Alluvial Fan Falls. These falls were formed in 1982 when an old dam at Lawn Lake (built in 1903, before the park was formed) on the Roaring River collapsed during heavy rain sending a wall of 26 million gallons of water roaring down the canyon. Along the way the wall of water picked up huge boulders and tore out/snapped trees as it rushed down hill. When the torrent came to Horseshoe Park, the waters spread out and dropped its load of broken twisted trees, boulders and tons of sand in a fan shaped deposit. The water continued down hill killing three campers and roaring through town. The Olympic Dam at lake Estes stopped the flood from continuing down hill.  

There is currently an east and west trail up to the falls. But there is a project in work to tie them together in a wheel chair accessible trail. We hike the west trail as we went down the road to the Horseshoe park picnic area (lots of folks were parked there to go fishing on Falls Creek) and the east trail as we drove back out. As we came out of Falls Creek road, the snow started to come down in earnest and we decided to head for the Wanderer. It rained, sleeted, frozen rain and snowed most of the afternoon and night. 

 

Stanley Hotel with Elk Cows in front

Alluvial Fan Falls