Rocky Mountain National Park

August 1, 2005

My 2005 trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. 7 days, 2430 miles.

In July/August of 2005, I was in Broomfield, Colorado, to attend a class to learn the ins and outs of a certain piece of hardware. Broomfield, CO, is 50 miles from Estes Park, the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. Just a trip up US-36, and you're there.

This would be my third time to this park. It is the very definition of Purple Mountain Majesty. I was here twice in 1997 two weeks apart, but it was enough time for it to snow. In September. I would be there in August, but it's been known to snow in the park in July. I wasn't counting on snow, but it really does get cold at 11,800 feet above sea level. No oxygen either. Unless you have some sort of super/turbocharger on your car, your car loses power. So do humans. But you get twice the ultraviolet, so bring your sunscreen.

Some of the only blue skies I saw in 2005...

I think there are more dramatic mountains, for instance the Tetons, the Sierra Nevadas, and even the Rocky Mountains up in Glacier National Park, but nothing as dramatic, or perhaps nothing as vast as the Rocky Mountains are here.

My plan was simple. I would arrive early on Sunday and go through the park and take daytime pictures. After class one day, I'd go up into the park and take sunset pictures.

I wasn't counting on it raining every day I was there. Every day. So all the pictures here of the park were taken on August 1st. And almost all the pictures are panoramics. It's just that sort of park. (This is really the first time I had been West with the intent of taking panoramics. Some of them have been redone up to three times over the years as I refined the process.)

I was also there in 2008, where we had to wait until noon before Trail Ridge Road opened due to 6' snow drifts by Lava Cliffs...

Rocky Mountain National Park