I
think that Rocky Mountain National Park was the only one in the west that
we had not visited before. Here, at its headwaters, the Colorado
River is small enough to jump across The road through the park is called
Trail Ridge. It climbs above the treeline where snow
remains until mid-summer. Thirty foot high snow poles
surrounding the visitor center attest to the effort needed to find the building
in the springtime! Avalanches would be a
constant fear. Elevations in the park are so high that the road signs list
it in MILES above sea level. Instead of
"Keep off the Grass", it is "Keep off the Tundra".
It was interesting to see how bleak the landscape
is above tree-line. It looked like Kansas up there. The mountains peaks on
either side of the road may have been stark, but they were certainly scenic.
This
was a great place to hike. We set off on a 5 mile loop to visit some high
mountain lakes. The grade was gradual and
we came upon the first lake before we knew it. Beyond
that lake the scenery changed dramatically.
We started to see glaciated U-shaped valleys.
There was a photo-op around every bend in the trail
and we were even looking down at an elk herd. The
final lake was perhaps the most beautiful spot I've
ever seen. The scenery photo that I took will
serve as wallpaper on my computer for long time to come!
We
regret to say that the only fourteener that we summited during our
two months in the Colorado Rockies is Mount Evens. It was an embarrassingly
easy trek because there's a parking lot within
a hundred yards of the peak! We drove to the top of 14,110' Pike's Peak a
few years ago and it was a rip-off. The City of Colorado Springs owns the
toll road and charges $30 per car. Mount Evens is even higher than Pike's
peak (14,284') and it is part of the National Park system so our Parks Pass
got us in for free.
One of the more obvious landmarks that we could see from the top was South Park, the big dry valley near our "home" on Wilkerson Pass. Closer features that we could see included a still-icy mountain lake and a ridge line that looked like the top of "Howard's Mountain" back home (except for the snow).
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