The park has 360 miles of trails, 150 lakes, and 72 peaks taller than 12,000 feet, the highest being Longs Peak at an elevation of 14,259. A quarter of the park lies above treeline. Below is Longs Peak which honors Stephen Long whose 1920 expedition passed this area (though it never entered the mountains.)
Lily Lake is a magnificent area just above Estes Park. A short trail takes you around the lake, and another trail takes you up to viewpoints above the lake.
Trail Ridge Road (Colorado Route 34) traverses the park from Estes Park on the east side to Grand Lake on the west, hitting 12,183 feet at its highest point. The photo below shows the road as it switchbacks up the mountains from the valley below...
The Continental Divide breaches the middle of the park and each side has a different ecology, with drier climate and glaciated peaks on the east and lush forests on the moister west side, where more precipitation is coaxed from the clouds crossing the high peaks. This overlook allowed expansive views...
Steve and I on our 1990 trip through the park...
These mushroom-shaped rocks were "born of fire and water" according to the signage. The dark colored rock is schist which was originally sand, silt, and clay at the bottom of a sea. Magma from deep in the earth invaded the schist and gradually cooled into the lighter colored granite. Mushroom shapes formed when the granite stems eroded more quickly than the schist caps.
Obviously this photo is from the more arid eastern side of the divide...
Below is a marmot and below it a herd of elk...
The mighty Colorado River has humble beginnings on the western slope of Rocky Mountain National Park (although some dispute this: The "Colorado River" originally referred to the waterway located on the Colorado Plateau below the junction/confluence of the Green and Grand Rivers in Utah's Canyonlands National Park. At that time, no part of the Colorado River actually ran through the State of Colorado. In 1921, politicians in the State of Colorado managed to get the "Grand River" (which flowed out of Grand Lake in Colorado south of Rocky Mountain National Park, through Granby and later Grand Junction -- notice the Grand in these names) renamed Colorado River. Thus the original Colorado River, along with the formerly called Grand River, together became the longer and current Colorado River. But Colin Fletcher and many others feel that the Green River, which is 300 miles longer than the former Grand River and drains a larger area than the old Grand River, is therefore the "master stream.")
In the 1920, Sophie and John Holzwarth opened their Trout Ranch along the shores of the above pictured Colorado River on the west flank of the national park just north of Grand Lake. For a decade their dude ranch offered "plain, primitive fun" at the Trout Ranch, and from 1929 to early 1970s they operated the nearby Never Summer Ranch (would that name entice you to come?)
The largest "Mama" cabin is where Sophie cooked both her delicious German cuisine and local western recipes for the hungry dude fishermen.
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