Special Report: Rocky Mtn NP

Rocky Mountain National Park was my “go to” place when I was a J-school grad student at Boulder.

It was where I would go, when completing a photography project, to wind down or just be inspired.

So when Cathy Tsao a color spotter from the North Bay sent these pictures of RMNP, I just had to share them.

Cathy apologized for the “overcast and drizzly” day, but no apology was necessary, many of the photographs I treasure most from my days at CU happened on drizzly days in the national park.

Colorado has large stands of aspen that spread across similar elevations throughout the Rockies. Because of this, Colorado’s fall color all seems to peak within two weeks. So, the rush to see the trees during that tight window is intense, as is the disappointment of not getting there in time.

@RockyNPS posts photographs of the fall color and it appears the color shows very similar in timing to the High Sierra, as peak color was being reported in late September.

Colorado is famous for panoramic swaths of yellow color, though at RMNP the aspen carry red, orange, yellow and lime, similar to that seen in the Hope Valley and Eastern Sierra.

Tsao found color to be approaching Past Peak this week along the park’s Bear Lake Road and Trail Ridge Road. She was impressed to see “some hillsides absolutely blanketed with color, as in the photo taken from the Glacier Gorge trailhead.”

If Yosemite is a landscape park, Rocky Mountain is a wildlife park, famous for its bighorn sheep, North American elk, moose, lynx, wolverine and endearing chipmunks. 

• Rocky Mountain National Park (7,800′) – Peak to Past Peak – GO NOW as YOU ALMOST MISSED IT!