AWESOME Rocky Mountain National Park & Caching AWESOME 6/23/2010

This morning we left a little early to drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park and drive part way through it and also do some caching as we go. Our first cache was an Earthcache along the road to Estes Park that had to do again with the Big Thompson Flood in 1976. It had to do with what was deposited in the river and what you do if there was ever another instance like that again......CLIMB to safety. Then we drove into Estes Park and did 2 traditional caches one at Estes Valley Memorial Gardens and the other at the Historic Fall River Hydro Museum. Then it was on into the park and seeing as we had our senior NPS membership, good for life, we saved $20.00.

Our first stop was at Sheep Lakes and a other Earthcache that had to do with Glacial Remnants. The Fall River Glacier once covered this valley with hundreds of feet of ice. To the northwest, you can see the U-shaped valley and bowl-shaped cirques that are evidence of the glacial effects on this landscape. Most of the sculpting of the mountains in front of you was conducted during the Pinedale age of glaciation. This was the third of the three primary glacial periods which were to carve the mountains of the Front Range.
Ice from the glaciers at this time was hundreds of feet thick. When it moved down the valleys, it pushed everything in its path like a huge U-shaped bulldozer. Valleys were smoothed, widened, and deepened. Rock and soils were picked up, mixed together, and deposited as till. Often, this material was carried several miles from its origin.
As the Fall River Glacier retreated, massive chunks of the ice broke off and were buried in the sediments which were left behind. The weight of this ice formed depressions. When the ice melted, these depressions filled with water and became the ponds known as the Sheep Lakes.
Unfortunately this stop is where you occasionally see Big Horn Sheep but as you can see by the picture they hadn't seen any in a week. We did our cache, took pictures and were on our way.

Our next stop and virtual cache was at Beaver Ponds where we had to walk out on the boardwalk and just take a picture of the lovely view.

Next stop and Earthcache was at Many Parks Curve and a lovely view from high up the mountains and Moraine Park. During the past 2 million years, the glaciers in Rocky Mountain National Park have advanced and retreated several times from the high country. The ridges before you on each side of Moraine Park are the lateral moraines formed from the glacial debris which has been pushed and deposited to the sides of glaciers during the past 150,000 years. These moraines form the north and south boundaries for Moraine Park, which was the melting basin for the Thompson Glacier. We took the needed picture and walked back to the car and were off.

Next was a stop at a small pull From a distance, the tundra may look uniform and smooth, but close up, it looks quite different. Rock streams, rock glaciers, and solifluction terraces are some of the resulting land forms caused by the freeze-thaw action on tundra.
To the west of the road, you will see many rocks on the surface of the ground. These have been pushed up by freeze/thaw cycles over thousands of years. They may collect in streams that slowly move downhill, or may form in rings or piles on the surface. This is called Patterned Ground.
Solifluction terraces can also be seen close by to the west, or a little further away to the north on the south facing slope of Sundance Mountain. These terraces form when the freezing and thawing of the ground causes the soil to move downhill over thousands of years. During the summer months, the top layers of soil thaw and become saturated. This wet soil slowly slides over the icy subsoil, which has remained frozen underneath.off opposite Sundance Mountain and another Earthcache having to do with the tundra. Again we got our information and picture and were off.

It seemed that we were going up and up and up and never would stop. The views were lovely as you can see by the pictures and the only bad part of the drive was the road. They were going to repave the road and had ground it and for about 4-5 miles it was bumpy as the devil.

We stopped on the way to the next cache to look at the Lava Cliffs and then stopped at Gore Range, the highest point on our drive 12,183', for a Virtual cache where we had to read the signs and find out the highest mountain you could see from this spot.

Then we drove to the Alpine Visitor's Center for our next Earthcache having to do with cirques. The Alpine Visitor's Center, at 11,796’, is the highest visitor center in the National Park System. It is located on the northwest rim of the cirque which forms the headwaters of the Fall River. This cirque has seen many glaciers during several periods of glaciation during the past two million years.
Most cirques in Rocky Mountain National Park are on the north, northeast, or east sides of their respective ridges. This is due to the prevailing winds which helped to form the glaciers. Winds from primarily the southwest blew snow up and over the ridges, where it was deposited on the shaded northeast face. Over time, the weight of the accumulated snow and ice would compress, and cause the ice to move downhill.
The Fall River Glacier began at this cirque and headed downhill. Along the way, sediments were picked up in the form of soils, gravels, and boulders. Striations can be found in the rocks along Fall River Road where ice scoured the underlying rock with some of these sediments, causing scratches which can still be seen today. The Fall River Glacier acted like a huge U-shaped bulldozer, deepening and widening the narrow V-shaped ancient Fall River Valley and forming the distinctive steep-walled sides.
Fall River Glacier traveled down the valley about 8 miles to Horseshoe Park. Here, lateral moraines can be seen on the north and south sides of the park which consist of the sediments which were scooped up and carried along on the outer edges of the glacier. A terminal moraine is at the eastern end of Horseshoe Park near the furthest extent of the glacier. A large load of till was dropped at this location before the glacier began to recede.
Today, there is no longer a glacier associated with this cirque, but you are likely to see snow lasting well into the summer. As you might expect, the snow lasts longest on the southwest side, which is where the deeper snow drifts lie, and where there is less direct sunlight.
We found our cache, took some pictures and walked around the visitors center looking at all the pictures of how high the snow was in past years. As you can see by the pictures I took there still is a ton of snow left up there still. Usually every winter the Visitor's Center is buried in the snow they get. On May 25th of this year there was still 8' of snow in the parking lot of the center.

Then it was on to our last stop and Earthcache at Milner Pass site of the Continental Divide. The Continental Divide, also called the Great Divide, is part of a hemispheric boundary line which separates watersheds in a primarily east-west direction. Between Canada and Mexico, the Great Divide runs for about 3,100 miles. West of the Divide, water flows to the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California. East of the Divide, water flows to the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, Hudson Bay, or the Arctic Ocean.
The Divide may seem like a permanent feature, but over geologic time much can change. Mountains are pushed up and eroded away. Tectonic plates move, can split apart, or come crashing together. Localized climatic events like glaciation can cause new drainage patterns to be gouged out or block old outlets. Human changes in landscape (such as the Grand Ditch on the east side of the Never Summer Mountain Range), can cause water to end up in a different drainage from where it originally fell.
In Rocky Mountain National Park, the Divide enters the park on the west side near Mt. Nimbus in the Never Summer Mountain Range. From here, the Divide follows the crest of the Never Summer Mountains north and east through La Poudre Pass, south through Specimen Mountain and across Milner Pass generally southeasterly through the crest of Mount Ida and Flattop Mountain, continuing southerly past Taylor Peak, Mount Alice, and Isolation Peak, before leaving the Park near the St. Vrain Glaciers in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. Within the Park, the majority of the Divide follows mountain peaks and ridges, or alpine tundra, passing through forested lands only at La Poudre Pass and Milner Pass. Along with numerous smaller creeks, the Divide is the origin for the Colorado River and Cache la Poudre River. We took our needed picture and got the information we needed and we were off the same way we came for our drive back to the coach.

It was a lovely drive and sometimes a little scary as you drive along with no guardrails or anything to stop you from going over the edge into nowhere. Some of those drop offs are amazing and if you ever went over kiss your butt goodbye. We stopped halway down and had lunch as we had brought a picnic with us. It was a nice drive back and we stopped at the Fall River Center to get a souvenir of the amazing trip. We hope you like the pictures and until tomorrow we love and miss you all. Mom & Dad Dori & Dick