Rocky Mountain National Park is a 415 square-mile National Park in Northern Colorado. It straddles the continental divide and features high mountain peaks, lakes, rivers, trails and lots of wildlife.
From Fort Collins, the Rocky Mountain National Park is only a little over an hour away by car, and the drive via Highway 34 takes you through Thompson Canyon along the Big Thompson river. Thompson Canyon features rock walls that rival those of Poudre Canyon road (Highway 14). If you come this way, you will find the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park in the town Estes Park.
So it was an easy choice to take a little road trip with my friend Judith Hecktor,
who was visiting from Berlin (and has been featured in quite a few
videos from Berlin, Brooklyn and other road trip videos). As you can see
in the video she gets along smashingly with our dog Whiskey.
This
area is truly stunning with its contrast of big mountains, deep
meadows, running rivers, colorful rocks, a variety of plants and
wildlife everywhere.
The last time, I visited Rocky Mountain
National Park was in August, in the heat of the summer. Even then you
could still find snow on some of the peaks. Unfortunately, now in April,
there was still so much snow that some of the higher roads were closed.
But I’m sure I’ll be back to film, explore and show this beautiful
nature park to other visiting friends throughout the summer. Scott and I
may even go on a camping venture up there or stay in one of the cabins
along the river… Whatever we do, I’m sure I’ll share a video with you
afterwards.
On the plus side of checking out this park in the
winter: so much snow has fallen that entire lakes, hiking trails and the
signs for those locations are buried in the snow, which adds a
different kind of drama to your photographic or videographic experience.
While
the fee to get in is $20, the ticket is valid for an entire week – at
least at this time of the year. And there’s so much else to explore in
the vicinity, like staying at The Stanley Hotel,
which was the inspiration for Stephen King’s novel “The Shinning” and
where some of the TV show has been filmed, or taking the aerial tramway… So yeah, I’ll be back soon…
The
featured song is the instrumental version of “Saturday” – a song
written and performed by Josh Woodward (JoshWoodward.com), who kindly
makes his music available via a Creative Commons License.
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| Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado |