Bear Lake, with Massive Longs Peak in the Background
Shelk photo.
This national park reaches lofty heights. The summer visitors who live at the base of the great mountains are 8,000 feet, or more than a mile and a half, above the level of the sea; while the mountains themselves rise precipitously nearly a mile, and often even higher. Longs Peak, the largest of them all, rises 14,255 feet above sea level, and most of the other mountains in the Snowy Range, as it is sometimes called, are more than 12,000 feet high; several are nearly as high as Longs Peak.
The valleys on both sides of this range and those which penetrate into its recesses are dotted with parklike glades clothed in a profusion of glowing wild flowers and watered with streams from the mountain snows and glaciers. Forests of evergreens and silver-stemmed aspen separate them.
This range was once a famous hunting ground for large game. Lord Dunraven, a famous English sportsman, visited it to shoot its deer, bear, and bighorn sheep, and acquired large holdings by purchase of homesteadings and squatters' claims, much of which was reduced in the contests that followed.
The range lies, roughly speaking, north and south. The gentler slope is on the west. On the east side the descent from the Continental Divide is precipitous in the extreme. Sheer drops of two or three thousand feet into rock-bound gorges carpeted with snow patches and wild flowers are common. Seen from the east-side valleys this range rises in daring relief, craggy in outline, snow spattered, awe inspiring.
In the north-east corner lies a spur from the Continental Divide, the Mummy Range, a tumbled majestic mountain mass which includes some of the loftiest peaks and one of the finest glaciers.
To the south of Longs Peak the country grows even wilder. The range is a succession of superb peaks. The southern park boundary unfortunately cuts arbitrarily through a superlative massing of noble snow-covered summits.
The west side, gentler in its slopes and less majestic in its mountain massings, is a region of loveliness and wildness diversified by splendid mountains, innumerable streams and lakes of great charm. Grand Lake, which has railroad connections nearby, is one of the largest natural lakes in Colorado and the deepest lake in this region.