Kruger Rock – Hiking with Fred

Estes Park has a lot of trails outside of Rocky Mountain National Park, many of them dog friendly. I had done some research and gotten some recommendations from a friend which matched that and I chose Kruger Rock Trail.

Kruger Rock is located within the Hermit Park Open Space area in Estes Park. Coincidentally, it’s a short drive from Jellystone as well.

Kruger Rock Trail is 1.75 miles long. It’s a packed sand trail covered in some parts with fallen pine needles, and some rock “steps” as well. The trail is well-marked and we had no trouble staying on course. The initial ascent of the trail is not steep but it is steady, and the altitude gain was definitely difficult for me. We stopped a few times for me to catch my breath along the way. Fred had no trouble on the trail, and had plenty of opportunity to befriend others along the way.

There were a number of others hiking the trail but it wasn’t crowded. Some were families, some couples, some solo hikers, a few other dogs. We hiked a bit with a family with 3 young boys who had done the trail in previous years. My favorite encounters were with the 4 older ladies who were steadily hiking the trail. We chatted at one of the overlooks – they live locally and are thrilled about it. They all had their hiking sticks and were just taking their time about it. We left the overlook ahead of them and the next time we saw them they were just approaching Kruger Rock and were thinking about the climb. I felt very proud of them for getting as far as they did with intent to finish it all!

As had been advertised, there was a scramble at the end to reach the top of Kruger Rock. There were several overlooks along the way, but the final summit of this trail was worth the work. Honestly I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to navigate Fred and myself up the rock, let alone down it, but this was because I was watching a couple come down…. I think we did a much better job of it.  Thank goodness for Fred’s strong verbal directionals because I had to use them on the climbing portion to help Fred choose his path ahead of me!

After the hike, I parked the RV and Fred in an oversized parking space at the public library and went touristing… browsing, shopping, eating.  

I found the t-shirt store, from which my favorite small humans will be getting gifts, and a place for food take-out… and there were ice cream shops everywhere… so i had to try that out too.  

One thing I noticed – nobody seems to pick up the Elk poop on the sidewalks!