The Rocky Mountain National Park was my summer home every year of the first eighteen years of my life. My grandparents rented the largest cabin at Jack Woods Cabin Camp just inside the old Thompson River entrance to the park, where our extended family congregated each year. I grew up being told this is my own park. It was my yard. “It is the Peoples’ Park, so treat it with respect.” At eight years old I caught my first trout down behind the cabin in the Big Thompson River. I climbed my first mountain, Eagle Ledge, over the river and across the road and climbed Longs Peak at fourteen years old. In my eighteenth year I worked on the trail crew with an amazing trail foreman, Ernie Rebman, who had built many of the trails working with the CCC. I highly recommend the book, Those Castles of Wood: The Story of Early Lodges of Rocky Mountain National Park and Pioneer Days of Estes Park, Colorado by Henry E. Pederson, Jr.
Sincerely,
Rocky Mountain National Park
This dramatic landscape of towering mountains and alpine lakes encompasses more than 265,000 acres - 95% of which are designated wilderness. With this intentional focus on protecting this unique landscape, there are few developed infrastructure areas in the park, which leads to traffic problems in areas including the Bear Lake Road Corridor and right off Trail Ridge Road. Alpine tundra also encompasses approximately 1/3 of the park. Alpine tundra is a fundamental and fragile resource, which requires park managers to give this ecosystem increased attention for protection.
State(s): Colorado
Established: 1915
“The national parks are my boyhood, my life. They are the "peoples' parks. We MUST support them.”
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Greetings from Rocky Mountain National Park
Last year about this time, my husband and I were planning an autumn trip to CO. Rocky Mountain NP was to be among our first stops but we had never visited a park where reservations were required. I called the number at RMNP to get some advice. The man who…
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