Rocky Mountain National Park

 

Rocky Mountain National Park

While at Granby, CO, we were close to the west entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, which is the third most popular National Parks.  We were to be in Granby for a few days, so we could take our time and split up time in the Park over a couple of days.  Let’s get started!

Driving through the Park was a beautiful sight!  You’ll see more great views as we travel through this part of the Park.

At 10, 120 feet in elevation, we looked out at the Never Summer Mountains.  It’s the only volcanic range in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Below it lies the Kawuneeche Valley, which is Arapahoe for “valley of the coyote”.  The Valley was shaped by glaciers and the Colorado River.  The most recent glacier receded about 14,000 years ago.

The next sight we saw was Poudre Lake, right at the Continental Divide (10,759 feet in elevation).  As you can see f rom the color of the grass, autumn is beginning to arrive up high in the Rockies.  This view is lovely, but on the way back, we saw another great sight from here (be patient!).

We’re used to wide open driving, but up here at 11,600 (and higher) wide open takes on an entirely new meaning!!  I kept thinking each view was the best, and then along came another one!

The Gore Range is named for Sir St. George Gore, and Irish aristocrat, who came to this area on a hunting expedition, led by Jim Bridger in 1854, who was described as a mountain man.  This range is now a part of Eagles Nest Wilderness Area. The 133,000 acres that make up the wilderness area is as wild today as it was when the area was discovered in 1854.

They call this road Trail Ridge Road, and this image shows you why!!  The scene is absolutely beautiful, and I love the little lake down the way.  But do you see the blurred area at the bottom of the image?  That’s the road edge, and we are just outside the image.  We are driving right along the rim, and should we go off the road, it’s all downhill!

These lava cliffs aren’t the site of a former active volcano.  But it’s not.  These cliffs are the result of volcanic activity from long ago…. from the Never Summer Mountains, which are quite a distance away.  Those volcanoes erupted over 20 million years ago, and the ash that floated from there, settled, and hardened. 

I love the feeling of space that this image creates.  Things are very wide open in spaces along this drive.

 As we drove along the road, I took the upper image, and wondered what the edge of the ground overlooked.  The larger image is what the answer is to that question!  It’s Forest Canyon, and at this point, we’re at the overlook area.  The Big Thompson River flows down the Forest Canyon as it has for thousands of years.  I couldn’t see the river for the trees!!  Several times over the past 2 million years, glaciers have formed and moved down the river.  Forest Canyon formed along an ancient fault line.  On the left side of the image above, you can see Hayden Gorge, a U-shaped glacial valley.  Interesting note – Poudre Lake, shown earlier, is made up of water flowing from The Big Thompson River!

The short trail to get to see the actual Forest Canyon Overlook crosses the tundra (Russian for “land of no trees”).  This area is above the tree line and with winds that often exceed 100 mph (although not today!), temperatures remain below freezing for at least 5 months out of the year.  Tundra plant communities take a long time to mature, so people are asked to stay on the trail and off the tundra.  Most people complied when we were there, although there was a couple who apparently thought their need for a photo on the tundra eclipsed caring for this ecosystem. There were areas with lots of rocks that form a “patterned ground” (shown above) that is only found in Alpine and Arctic regions.  During the last Ice Age, the pattern of freezing and thawing the topsoil caused the rock pattern to emerge.

In 1982, when the Lawn Lake Dam was 79 years old, it burst and sent 29 million gallons of water down the Roaring River, through Horseshoe Park and into Estes Park.  Three people lost their lives and tons of boulders, tree, gravel and sand were swept downhill until they settled into a fan shape, and the place became known as Alluvial Fan.  This area was again pummeled during the Colorado Flood of 2013, piling on more debris, and again changing the landscape.  This is Horseshoe Falls, that runs through the damaged area.  Amazing how two such damaging events can result in such a picturesque little waterfall.

And so, we started down Old Fall River Road.  This road was being used by tourists in their car caravans back in 1926, so it’s been around quite a while!  It’s now a dirt one-way road, and we liked it because, relatively speaking, it wasn’t that crowded.  The day we traveled down it, we felt like it was a bit of Grand Central Station, but like I said, it was “relatively” quiet!!  The image on the left is the road at the beginning of the 9-mile (or is it 11? Depends on the road sign!) road and the image on the left is of a crease in the mountain that looked like a dry riverbed, and is, most likely, where the winter snow melt flows down.

I loved the spot of autumn colors in the trees.  The area was just starting to put on the fall color show – we were about a week or so early for the full show.  This was kind of a rehearsal!!

Since it was such a nice day, we opened the top of Jeep and enjoyed the overhead views – both the mountains and the trees!  We enjoy doing that because it’s such a nice way to open up the views and our enjoyment of the drive!

I’m including this image of a mountain simply because I really liked the color shading!  I would love to make a quilt with these colors sometime!!

I read and was told to expect to see a LOT of animals in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Well, I guess the animals didn’t get that memo, because the only wildlife we saw was this moose, who was very accommodating in terms of posing for the cameras!!  In case you’re wondering, the collar the moose is wearing is a method of tracking the moose.

Enjoy!!