Busy Estes Park Afternoon
by Jon Burch Photography
Title
Busy Estes Park Afternoon
Artist
Jon Burch Photography
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photography
Description
Summer and fall weekend afternoons are pretty busy in Estes Park, Colorado. In this view from the Birch Ruins, Long's Peak is seen touching the sky to the southwest. The city is a town in Larimer County, Colorado and is a popular summer resort and the location and the headquarters for Rocky Mountain National Park.
Located along the Big Thompson River, the town is named after Missouri native Joel Estes, who founded the community in 1859. On the northern side of Estes is the Stanley Hotel built in 1909. Stephen King was a guest in the hotel at one time and the stay caused him to change the locale for his novel 'The Shining.' The story originally was written to take place in an amusement park but was moved to the Timberline Lodge in Oregon as a fictional stand-in called the Overlook Hotel.
Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuous highway in the United States, runs from Estes Park westward through Rocky Mountain National Park, reaching Grand Lake over the continental divide. The park as well as the town itself suffered severe damage in July 1982 from flooding caused by the failure of Lawn Lake Dam. Estes Park sits at an elevation of 7,522 feet on the Colorado Front Range of the Rocky Mountains at the eastern entrance of the Rocky Mountain National Park.
Longs Peak, seen in the distance, is one of the 54 mountains with summits over 14,000 feet in Colorado. The peak can be prominently seen from the town of Longmont, as well as from the rest of the Colorado Front Range. Named after Major Stephen Long, who explored the area in the 1820's, Longs Peak is one of the most prominent mountains in Colorado, rising nearly 10,000 feet above the western edge of the Great Plains. Together with the nearby Mount Meeker, the two are sometimes referred to as the Twin Peaks.
The first recorded ascent of Long's Peak was in 1868 by the surveying party of John Wesley Powell. The East Face of the mountain is quite steep, and is surmounted by a gigantic sheer cliff known as "The Diamond" because of its shape - approximately that of a cut diamond seen from the side and inverted. Another famous profile belongs to Longs Peak: to the southeast of the summit is a series of rises which, when viewed from the northeast, resembles a beaver.
Some digital effects were applied to the original image after the photograph was made. No electrons were harmed during the transition.
Image copyright 2022 Jon Burch Photography.
Uploaded
September 22nd, 2022
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Comments (4)
Lorraine Baum
Congratulations Jon - Your wonderful image has been Featured in the All COLORADO group. Please add it to the 2022 Featured Archives group discussion. L/F