Gateway to the Rockies
by Jon Burch Photography
Title
Gateway to the Rockies
Artist
Jon Burch Photography
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photography
Description
Located along the Big Thompson River in north Colorado, the town of Estes Park is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. 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.
Longs Peak, seen in the distance beyond Estes Park is located within Rocky Mountain National Park and is one of the 54 Colorado mountains with summits over 14,000 feet. The peak can also be prominently seen from the town of Longmont to the south, 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 the Colorado Rockies, 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 one armed 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.
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 to Rocky Mountain National Park.
Some digital effects were applied to the original image after the photograph was made. No electrons were harmed during the transition.
Image copyright 2023 Jon Burch Photography.
Uploaded
April 15th, 2023
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