Old Postcard Wednesday--Trail Ridge Road, above Horseshoe Park, Colorado

This looks like a beautiful place in the old postcard and also in a modern image on the
Estes Park website, which, under tabs at the top of the page, offers oodles of links to learn more about this marvelous place on the Earth and how you can enjoy it as a visitor. The website provides the following information about Trail Ridge Road:

Trail Ridge Road spans the Park and connects Estes Park to the town of Grand Lake on the western slope. It's the highest continuously paved road in the United States, reaching an elevation of 12,183 feet. 

It is open to vehicle traffic from Memorial Day weekend until the Park Service closes it in the fall. Temporary closings may occur in early June or late fall because of snow. It's usuallly October before the Park Service gives up fighting the snow and turns the road back to Mother Nature for the winter.

The many turnouts along Trail Ridge Road provide scenic overlooks and tremendous photographic opportunities, day or night. The night time view from Rainbow Curve is spectacular. City lights from Fort Collins to Denver are visible.

Trail Ridge Road travels through forests, above tree line, over the alpine tundra, reaches the high point, and crosses the Continental Divide before winding its way down to the town of Grand Lake. There are numerous trails and short hikes available from Trail Ridge Road.

Just west of the high point is Fall River Pass, elevation 11,796 feet, and the Alpine Visitor Center. Many elk, deer and bighorn sheep move to the high country in the summer and can sometimes be seen from the deck of the Visitor Center. Rest rooms, a restaurant and a gift shop are also located in this area.  The temperatures can be cool at this altitude, so you'll want to bring a jacket along just in case.

A note concerning the alpine tundra - This is an extremely fragile ecosystem. Please stay on the marked trails. Crushed growth takes many decades to heal.

The official website for Rocky Mountain National Park has a current announcement that reads:  

Trail Ridge Road IS OPEN for the 2011 Season!  

The website is a wonderful, full-service resource with fantastic photos. In my opinion, it would be a "must-read" prior to planning a visit to the area.

For a high resolution panoramic view of Horseshoe Park, click here. This is the description for the panoramic image: Horseshoe Park is the marshy grassland either side of the Fall River as it exits the hills on the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park, 5 miles from Estes Park; this panorama is taken from an overlook of the valley along US 34, close to the US 36 junction. Bighorn Mountain rises up to the north, and the higher peaks of the Mummy Range visible to the west, above the treeline. To the south are the wooded slopes of Tombstone Ridge, crossed by the US 34 switchbacks.


I suppose that, because I was such an admirer of his, I will always think of John Denver when I think of the Rocky Mountains. While preparing this post I stumbled upon a touching website titled  
Peace ~ John Denver by a woman in the UK, who created it to honor his memory. She offers up her own heartfelt poetry about John Denver and his affect on her life in the sweetest manner, and her first poem to him seems a perfect way to end this post:

To John - by Sylvia Ashton

From when I first heard your inspiring song,
And you became my very own bright star,
I followed you for more than half my life,
And, because of you, I travelled far.

Because you often told me of their beauty,
I crossed the ocean to the Rocky Mountains,
And once I bought a golden leaf in Aspen,
And threw a lucky coin into the fountain.

I watched a mountain storm strike firey forks
From Trail Ridge Road, high in the national park.
I saw a glacier and a frozen lake
Beneath cloud filled skies, frowning and dark.

You always lifted dark clouds in my thoughts,
Showed me the rainbow following on beyond.
You gave me faith and hope when times were bad,
And helped me celebrate the better ones.

You sang of 'Sunshine' when my first child was born.
Your 'morning bells' describe my second one.
At a concert you reached to my unborn child
And touched his soul while still within the womb.

Now you are gone and I have lost a friend,
But I still have your gifts to keep you near.
I will not think so much that you have gone
But how good it is that you were ever here.


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Old Postcard Wednesday--Longs Peak from Nymph Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

According to the opinion expressed below, "Nymph Lake is nothing spectacular . . ."
Now I don't know when the shot for this old postcard was taken, but it looks pretty spectacular to me! Someone thought highly enough of the place at the time to create a postcard in its honor. It sounds like the Dream Lake Trail is a much-used trail these days and it saddens me to think that a little jewel like this might have been compromised, or spoiled altogether.

Nymph / Dream / Emerald Lakes (0.5 to Nymph, 1.1 to Dream, 1.9 to Emerald)

This is the most popular trail in the park and I hesitate to list it for fear of adding to the traffic mess that can be found on the average summer day trying to reach the trailhead, located at the very end of Bear Lake Road. It is, however, too beautiful a day hike to omit and makes a nice short hike for those with children.

All the rules listed for hiking to Alberta Falls and The Loch apply here also. Consider riding the free shuttle bus to the trailhead to help alleviate parking problems. Otherwise, plan for an early start.

Nymph Lake is nothing spectacular, but Dream Lake well lives up to its name. The trail gets rough and steep in sections from Dream up to Emerald, but shouldn't pose many problems to those in even moderate shape. Scan the cliffs along the southern wall of the canyon at Emerald Lake to see rock climbers challenging the sheer slopes of Hallett Peak.

Although the trail stops at Emerald Lake, consider circling the lake along the south side and scrambling further up the valley 1.5 miles to the Pool of Jade--a nice lunch stop for those wanting a more quiet venue than the teeming throngs of Emerald Lake. As a bonus for your efforts, you'll be able to get a glimpse of Tyndall Glacier.

The above information was provided by Randal W. Horobik.

-from the Rocky Mountain National Park Hiking Page

John Denver naturally comes to mind when the topic covers the wonders of nature found in the Rockies. Interestingly, he came to my mind on Tuesday when I saw clips of the new recording of We Are the World with 100 great artists of this time in recording history. Back 25 years ago, back when the original We Are the World was recorded (I have the album), I remember reports that it broke John Denver's heart to not be among the great artists who first sang the song. Upon doing a bit of research about his not being a participant I found a really interesting blog post from June 2008 titled We Were the World... If you are at all interested in the background of the We Are the World phenomenon it is a post worth reading. The blog author mentions that "... John Denver, who had been actively campaigning against world hunger in the 1980s, had offered to participate in the recording, but was turned down." To me that is absolutely confounding...and truly sad.




The person who created this video did a nice job in coordinating photos and lyrics. The recording sounds to me like a later rendition, not the original.

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