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Gallery: Bear Lake and Emerald Lake Trails – September 3, 2009, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Longs Peak, above the lateral moraine across valley of Moraine Park.
Longs Peak (originally
Long’s Peak,
see below) is one of the 54 "fourteeners" in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. It can be prominently seen from Longmont, Colorado, as well as from the rest of the Colorado Front Range piedmont. It is named after Major Stephen Long, who explored the area in the 1820s. Longs Peak rises to 14,259 feet (4,346 m) above sea level. Surveys conducted prior to 2002 list the elevation as 14,255 feet (4,344 m). As the only fourteener in Rocky Mountain National Park, the peak has long been of interest to climbers. The easiest route is not "technical" during the summer season, and was probably first used by American Indians collecting eagle feathers, but the first recorded ascent was in 1868 by the surveying party of John Wesley Powell. The East Face of the mountain is quite steep, and is surmounted by a gigantic sheer cliff known as "The Diamond" (so-named because of its shape, approximately that of a cut diamond seen from the side and inverted. As with Pikes Peak, there is officially no apostrophe in the name, although a number of Colorado residents continue to object to this ruling by the Board on Geographic Names. (
Wikipedia)
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Gallery: Fern Lake Trail – September 6, 2009, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Viguiera is a genus of flowering plant in the Asteraceae family. A plant in this genus may be known as a goldeneye. These are herbs to bushy shrubs and they bear yellow or orange daisylike flowers. There are about 150 species native to the New World
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The smoke, which enhanced the twilight in this photo of the mountains above Moraine Park and the people viewing elk, is actually from fires that were burning in California.
September 1, 2009
Rocky Mountain National Park
Gallery: Eastern slopes – September 1, 2009
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Rocky Mountain National Park, September 3, 2009, about 11:40. We are on our way to Emerald Lake, about .6 miles on down the trail, past the end of Dream Lake.
Just after we get there, the battery in my camera dies, and neither of the Emerald Lake shots are worth keeping. The last good image was taken at 12:20.
Gallery:
Bear Lake and Emerald Lake Trails – September 3, 2009
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We had parked near the Alluvial Fan parking lot and I had walked across Fall River Road to get a different angle on the scenery for photos. This image is one of a number of thistle plants in bloom.
Along lower Fall River Road, Rocky Mountains National Park, September 2, 2009
Gallery: Fall River and Trail Ridge – September 2, 2009
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