Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Steven Dutch, Professor Emeritus, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
Rocky Mountain is one of those parks that's all about the scenery. The rocks are mostly Proterozoic metamorphic and plutonic rocks. The landscape offers magnificent glacial geology, though.
Views From Below
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Long's Peak (14,255 feet, 4345 meters), like Pike's Peak to the south, is an isolated high Front Range Peak, visible from far out in the plains. Apart from Mount Shasta and Mount Rainier, it is the northernmost 14,000 foot peak in the U.S. |
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Trail Ridge Road
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Long's Peak from Many Parks Curve on the Trail Ridge Road (U.S. 34). Park here refers to flat-bottomed valleys. |
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Above: Elk and chipmunk Left: Clark's Nutcracker |
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Rainbow Curve offers some of the most sweeping views. |
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Left and below: on the high ridge. |
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Left and below: some marvelous cirques. |
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Left and below: Forest Canyon. Some small glaciers lie in the cirques. The far ridge is the Continental Divide. |
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Alpine tundra. Below: recent mudflow |
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Estes Park
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Bighorn Sheep
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West Entrance
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This river cut the Grand Canyon. The Colorado River near its source. |
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The valley ahead is the source of the Colorado River. |
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Created 14 July 2003, Last Update 08 June 2020