National Parks. 



113 



NATIONAL PARKS. 



Proposed Rocky Mountain National Park. 



The proposed Rocky Mountain National Park is a project heretofore 

 known as the proposed "Estes National Park." At the suggestion of 

 various persons the name "Estes" has been abandoned and the name 

 "Rocky Mountain" adopted, as the former name is somewhat local and 

 meaningless and the latter marks the park as being a typical area of the 

 mid-continental Rocky Mountains; that is to say, an area of lofty 

 granite peaks and intermountain plateaus. 



The proposed boundaries, as agreed upon by all parties, comprise an 

 area of about 700 square miles in north-central Colorado. The park is 

 an irregular area bounded principally by streams and water divides, 

 about fifty miles long by twenty miles wide at the maximum. It centers 

 about Longs Peak, one of the best known of the Rocky Mountain 

 peaks, altitude 14,255, at the foot of which is the home of Enos A. 

 Mills. The park includes practically all the area which Mr. Mills' books 

 have made familiar to the public. 



Besides Longs Peak, the park includes a large number of other lofty 

 peaks, including the following: Arapahoe Peak, 13,520 feet; Mt. 

 Audubon, 13,173 feet; Hagues Peak, 13,554 feet; Fairchild Mt., 13,509 

 feet ; Mummy Mt., 13,410 feet, etc. The park includes about fifty miles 

 of the Continental Divide between the Pacific and Atlantic waters. In 

 the area lie a very large number of small glacial trough lakes and at 

 least one small glacier — probably more. The well-known towns of 

 Estes Park and Grand Lake are on the borders of the park, but not 

 in its boundaries. The park area proper is nearly all high mountain 

 country, perhaps half of it being above timber-line and no considerable 

 part of the area below 8,000 feet. 



The park is one of the most accessible in America, as it is distant from 

 Denver at the nearest point only about thirty-six miles as the crow flies, 

 or about forty-five miles by road, and is still closer to the large towns 

 of Boulder, Longmont and Loveland. The park possesses great possi- 

 bilities as an area for automobile touring, inasmuch as the rounded 

 contours of the country make it possible to build roads which will carry 

 the automobile traveler for many miles along high ridges which exceed 

 12,000 feet in altitude. From these points a view can be had of perhaps 

 thirty mountain peaks exceeding 14,000 feet in altitude and several 

 hundred miles of the great American plains which break away from 

 the mountains within twenty miles of the park. 



The park has a flora very typical of the high transitional, sub- 

 alpine and alpine zones, and a large animal life, including mountain 

 sheep, ptarmigan and other timberline residents. 



