Rocky Mountains

images from Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado


elk herd grazing





What's interesting about this Park is its intimacy. It's a huge place, yet everything seems so close to you. Like you could reach out and touch those mountains. That's partly because the air is so clear, so vibrant. The park's meadows lie between eight and nine thousand feet in altitude, with some of the peaks being fourteeners.



The small town at the entrance to the Park, called Estes Park, is nestled up close to the mountains. We're in the Front Range here, where tall peaks rise suddenly above the plains. The mountains are steep, sometimes sharp, very young and tall. In Estes Park, there are moose wandering through the mall parking lot. I'm told they've been having a problem with the mountain lions passing through the hospital parking lot, and scaring people. We're in the mountains here, and the mountains are in us, and the wildlife is very close at hand.