ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATURE ASSOCIATION Winter 2013 $4.00 QUARTERLY CONNECTING TO ROCKY from Longs, for example. But not to fuss by Alex Drummond right about now. There is a combination, Hiking with friends the other day in maybe more than one, of four chosen views the Sawatch Range near Monarch Pass that can span the state – a geographic tidbit we climbed to a ridge above treeline I find fascinating. And since the peaks and were amazed to see that we could aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, each see Pikes Peak 70-plus miles to the east of you readers can work on a solution as and the same distance to Mt. you drive, bike or hoof your way around Uncompahgre in western Colorado’s Colorado’s high country. Homework San Juan range. The full east-west assignment number one. view spanned about 145 miles. Next subject: wouldn’t it be fun to Not bad, I thought, considering that shade in on a map the full viewing for a six-foot person standing on a circumference of just Longs Peak, or let’s beach the ocean surface curves out of say, any bit of any terrain within Rocky? view in fewer than ten miles. I Wherever you can see the slightest smidge remembered, and explained to my of peak or ridge that you know is within friends, that I’d once determined— the park, you plot your viewing point on a through actual viewing—that with four map. You’re at a roadside produce stand linked vistas one could see all the way east of Greeley, for example, and your across Colorado. I couldn’t remember gaze wanders west and up. The produce exactly which peaks gave the connected person holding out your bag of beets, link; was it the Snowy Range in jiggling it for you to take, says “Whatcha Wyoming to Longs Peak, Longs to starin’ at?” “I’m looking at Rocky, my Pikes Peak, Pikes to Uncompahgre, and favorite national park,” you can answer, as west into Utah’s Abajo Range? Or is you turn back to your purchase. The same one of the mid-state fourteeners, Grays process applies to miles and miles up and Peak, Mt. Elbert or Snowmass down I-25, all those Front Range towns Mountain, part of the link? Or perhaps strung north to south and crowding west it was Mt. Blanca and the Spanish to the foothills, where the view starts to Peaks farther south, with views into get spotty, including much of Denver and New Mexico? its suburbs, and many places farther east. I can’t remember for sure and I It gets decidedly more complicated as obviously need to recheck details. Mt. you start looking for bits of the park Meeker might block a view of Pikes sticking up as you travel through the (Overlook, continued on page 2 ) 2 Rocky Mountain Nature Association Quarterly (Connections, continued) or to a friend groaning under $4-a-gallon Imperial Valley, along a bunch of canals, gas prices and maybe they’ll say how nice finally into the Colorado River proper, up mountains. You get windows, peepholes it would be just to hitch a ride on the back rapids with some big leaps over some and unexpected glimpses of a summit in of a crow. Crows who know how to get dams, over flat water across some huge Rocky showing through a gap in a ridge, or places, anyway. Then you can enjoy a lakes, more rapids, canyons and a sudden complete vista as you round a good chuckle wondering why the path a mountains. Water for 1,450 miles brought bend in your car. For every place you see a crow flies is a called a beeline rather than me right here to Rocky, with my final bit of Rocky you mark the site on a map a crowline. thrash a tough one up Timber Creek.” when you get back home. That’s homework But how about raising the ante and The guy in the car lines the two assignment number two. Now let’s imagine imagining getting to Rocky via water boaters up, snaps a picture, and has it all getting together over a big table and connections – and from anywhere, not just posted on Facebook before either one can coloring in Rocky’s total viewing area on a places where bits of the park stick up over take a swig from his canteen. “Daddy, single map—the large solid fan to the east ridges or horizons. Fancy some onlookers can you really paddle here from two and the dots and corridors punctuating the in New Orleans watching you putting on a different oceans?” the guy’s kid asks. mountain areas. And let’s agree in advance: wet suit at a riverside dock and climbing “There’s water all the way,” he says. the result will be impressive. into a kayak. “Where you off to?” they “The rest is equal parts muscle and What if the view from each of those ask. “To Rocky Mountain National Park,” imagination.” Hmm, perhaps he’s wiser places you discover makes you suddenly you answer. “You know, Colorado.” than he first let on. want to drop everything and go there? “Yeah, right,” they say. But off you And let’s do one final map: a map You’re on top of Mt. of the Holy Cross, paddle, with mythically powerful upstream called “People Who Care about Rocky.” A say, and can’t resist taking off for Longs strokes and dodging those leaping Asian map for national park lovers all over the Peak. Quick-step down the trail to your carp that have been known to bean a world. Start by reading down the list of car at the trailhead, drive via Leadville, person and shouldn’t be there in the first RMNP Fund donors in each issue of this Copper Mountain and I-70 to the Central place. Up the Mississippi to St. Louis, up Quarterly newsletter: people in Michigan, City turnoff and along miles of curvy the Missouri to Omaha, along the Platte all Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, Texas, Peak-to-Peak highway to the Longs Peak the way across Nebraska and into New York, Minnesota, Tennessee, Florida, trailhead; you park, don your hiking boots Colorado, branching near Greeley into the Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nebraska, New again, and you’re off for the Boulderfield. Poudre or up the Big Thompson, amazed Jersey, and Colorado, Colorado, Colorado, That’s quite a saga and lots of miles. that either choice will take you right into by the dozen. Oregon, Indiana, Quite a bit more of a saga if you decide to Rocky. If you don’t mind paddling uphill. Kentucky... you get it – there are lots of walk all the way, which, mind you, is Let’s say you take the Poudre River. people in every state. Put a colored fully doable. Back home you trace the You end your trip beside Poudre Lake at pushpin for each donor on a map, run a route you took on a map, with the Milner Pass and are lolling with your boat colored thread from each pin to Rocky, distances color-coded for each mode of on the shore as folks driving up and down and BAM! Those maps of flight routes in travel, including the line of sight. Map’s Trail Ridge, waving, some stopping. the pouch by your airline tray table pale title: “All Routes Lead to Rocky.” “Where’d ya paddle from?” a guy asks. by comparison. It’s a great map to see the One thing will be dramatically “From New Orleans,” you say. And world full of people who love this place, apparent: seeing something and getting instead of snorting, “Yeah, right,” he who want to see it thrive and are willing there can be two very different things. actually sticks out his hand for a shake. to pitch in to help. Now, that’s geography Figure out the line-of-sight distances and Less, maybe, for your achievement than plus humanity, which goes clear back to you’ll be astonished how short they are for Rocky itself. “I always knew this park the national parks’ founding vision. compared to land-surface distances. That’s was a special place,” he says. “Water all the nature of mountains, of course. Longs the way from New Orleans to here!” Just A former science writer and an avid outdoor Peak to Mt. Evans, is only 45 air miles; by then, another guy in wet suit comes over person, Alex Drummond led the first crossing of road it’s 63 miles just down to Pikes Peak; Colorado by ski in 1978. His biography of Enos the brow of the hill from the west. “You, Mills (Enos Mills:Citizen of Nature) is well Longs to Grays and Torreys: 43 air miles. too?” the driver asks. “Where’d you known throughout Colorado. In recent years he To the Wyoming border, 53; to Mt. Elbert, paddle from?” “From a confused estuary has turned his attention to poetry. 88 air miles. And so on. Recite those where the Colorado River flows into the distances to a friend groaning Pacific, up through melon under a heavy pack fields in California’s Rocky Mountain Nature Association Quarterly 3 WELCOME TO ROCKY’S NEW Ask Nancy [RMNA Quarterly Editor Nancy Wilson will attempt to CHIEF OF INTERPRETATION, unearth answers to any questions asked by RMNA members and park visitors. If you are curious about RICH FEDORCHAK something in or about the park, write: Nancy Wilson, RMNA, PO Box 3100, Estes Park, CO 80517.