Big Thompson Canyon & Glenhaven

While we were visiting Rocky Mountain National Park, we stayed at the Riverview RV Park, in Loveland; it’s a nice place on the banks of the Big Thompson River.    

 

Along with many other homes and businesses it was badly affected by the awful floods in 2013, the sites and cabins along the river were washed away. When we visited all the utilities had been replaced and work was continuing on re-building the cabins.   One section of the park was slightly higher and the floodwaters never actually reached it, this was where we stayed.  

 

On our way to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, we drove through Big Thompson canyon and signs of the floods were everywhere.

Here, the whole mountainside slipped into the river. 

 This was once someone’s riverside cottage.

This loo in a riverside park in the small town of Drake, used to be somewhere close to where I took this photograph, now it’s on the other side of the river.  

In Drake we took a left on CR 43 heading towards the small town of Glen Haven.   Signs of the 2013 floods were visible everywhere as we followed the winding road up the canyon. 

 

In Glen Haven, coffee in hand, we sat outside the General Store enjoying the sunshine, and watching as diggers worked continuing to make repairs to the town.

Coffee and a delicious home-made cinnamon bun (the bun was so big it took two of us to eat it) eaten, we followed the road as it wound its way up through Devils Gulch and into Estes Park.

Have fun, we are!