Rocky Mountain National Park

Today I took advantage of being here in Denver to visit the Rocky Mountain National Park and to use my new National Parks Senior Pass, which gets me in for free!  I did the famous Trail Ridge Road.  This is the park's star attraction and the world's highest continous paved highway, topping out at 12, 183 feet.  It was actually difficult to breathe at the top, but well worth the effort.  The views around each bend - of moraines and glaciers (pretty small now), and craggy hills framing green meadows carpeted with columbine and Indian paintbrush - are truly awesome.  As it passes through three ecosystems - montane, sub-alpine, and artic tundra - the road climbs 4,300 feet in elevation.  Many Peaks Curve affords views of the crest of the Continental Divide and of the Alluvial Fan, a huge gash a vicious flood created after an earthen dam broke in 1982.  There is a pine beetle epidemic that is affecting the forests nationwide which has caused some of the Rocky Mountain National Park's trees to turn a reddish brown and then die.  But, there are enough healthy green pines in the park to make it unbelievably beautiful.  Enjoy the photos:

Also, I passed the Stanley Hotel  (Made famous by Stephen King).  Genious entrepreneur F. O. Stanley, inventor of the Stanley Steamer automobile and several photographic processes, constructed this regal hotel on a promontory overlooking Estes Park in 1907 (it opened in 1909), after his doctors said he would soon die of tuberculosis.  Stanley went on to live another 30-odd years, an extension that he attributed to the area's fresh air.  The hotel soon became one of the most glamorous resorts in the Rockies, a reputation it holds to this day.  The hotel was the inspiration for Stephen King's The Shining, part of which he wrote while staying here.