Summer National Park Photo Dump (Finally)
When you move to a new state to start a new job a week after you get home from a two week vacation, sometimes it takes a while to update all the websites you maintain. With the county counting , the interstate clinching, the College Football Shame Masking, the complimentary college football trophy collecting that hasn't made it on the web yet, and the relaunching of my homepage at my new garnet Carolina, finding the time to write up a summary of a two-week trip with four state highest points and three national parks has not come easily. The high pointing update is on my USC page, and then my national parking is here. I won't say too much about them, but I certainly enjoyed my time at all three.
Rocky Mountain National Park (photos)
I spent most of my time on Trail Ridge Road, the highest paved road that isn't a dead end in the United States. It tops out at 12,183 feet and allows easy access to miles of alpine tundra above the treeline. It's pretty amazing that things can grow in such an environment, and I looked at these tiny plants that might be more than twenty years old with much more respect than I would have otherwise.
Mesa Verde National Park (photos)
I had seen photos of the ruins of Mesa Verde before, and while I thought they were cool, I had no idea how many such cliff dwellings there were. The park contains over 200 sites with some sort of ruins. Some are on top of the mesa and not on the cliffs, and many of the sites in the cliffs are just storage places, but there are four or five very large clusters of buildings.
Great Sand Dunes National Park (photos)
The Great Sand Dunes National Park was the real find for me on this trip. The way the wind and water shape the sand is really cool, and especially in the low angle crepuscular light quite beautiful. The sand starts out to the west in the flat San Luis Valley, where the strong winds pick it up. The 13,000+ foot Sangre de Cristo Mountains at the eastern edge of the park funnel this wind toward Mt. Herard, but as it rises to go over the mountain, it dumps the sand on its western face. Rain and snowmelt then wash it down to the foot of the mountain where the forces balance out creating a giant pile of sand. High Dune is over 600 feet tall and not far from the visitors center. Out in the dunes, since the wind shifts things around, you can't really have a trail to the top of the dune. Sometimes the sand is very compact and it is easy to get traction. However, often just on the other side of a ridge, the sand is rather loose, making it basically impossible to climb, but this does make the descent quite easy, often allowing you to lean back on your heels and sort of ski down. Unfortunately as I got to the top of High Dune and surveyed Star Dune, the highest in the park at over 700 feet, I found that there was a group of 50 or 60 high school kids from the Charlotte area making a stop on their church youth group's trip to the Grand Canyon. I remember hearing one of them tell his friends "Did you know that Chuck Norris doesn't believe in the periodic table? The only element he believes in is the element of surprise." It seemed so wrong for these kids to be making fun of Chuck Norris. How old are they? Would they have even watched Walker, Texas Ranger? It just seemed so wrong.
Rocky Mountain National Park (photos)
I spent most of my time on Trail Ridge Road, the highest paved road that isn't a dead end in the United States. It tops out at 12,183 feet and allows easy access to miles of alpine tundra above the treeline. It's pretty amazing that things can grow in such an environment, and I looked at these tiny plants that might be more than twenty years old with much more respect than I would have otherwise.
Mesa Verde National Park (photos)
I had seen photos of the ruins of Mesa Verde before, and while I thought they were cool, I had no idea how many such cliff dwellings there were. The park contains over 200 sites with some sort of ruins. Some are on top of the mesa and not on the cliffs, and many of the sites in the cliffs are just storage places, but there are four or five very large clusters of buildings.
Great Sand Dunes National Park (photos)
The Great Sand Dunes National Park was the real find for me on this trip. The way the wind and water shape the sand is really cool, and especially in the low angle crepuscular light quite beautiful. The sand starts out to the west in the flat San Luis Valley, where the strong winds pick it up. The 13,000+ foot Sangre de Cristo Mountains at the eastern edge of the park funnel this wind toward Mt. Herard, but as it rises to go over the mountain, it dumps the sand on its western face. Rain and snowmelt then wash it down to the foot of the mountain where the forces balance out creating a giant pile of sand. High Dune is over 600 feet tall and not far from the visitors center. Out in the dunes, since the wind shifts things around, you can't really have a trail to the top of the dune. Sometimes the sand is very compact and it is easy to get traction. However, often just on the other side of a ridge, the sand is rather loose, making it basically impossible to climb, but this does make the descent quite easy, often allowing you to lean back on your heels and sort of ski down. Unfortunately as I got to the top of High Dune and surveyed Star Dune, the highest in the park at over 700 feet, I found that there was a group of 50 or 60 high school kids from the Charlotte area making a stop on their church youth group's trip to the Grand Canyon. I remember hearing one of them tell his friends "Did you know that Chuck Norris doesn't believe in the periodic table? The only element he believes in is the element of surprise." It seemed so wrong for these kids to be making fun of Chuck Norris. How old are they? Would they have even watched Walker, Texas Ranger? It just seemed so wrong.
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