Introduction
The Rocky Mountain National Park is situated in the Rocky Mountains in the state of Colorado. The national park is among one of the most visited tourist destination in the United States as it is filled with majestic views that attract over three million visitors every year. The fauna and flora in the national park features mountain lakes, wildlife, mountain views as well as varied environments and climates (Malitz, 13). Rocky Mountain National Park has five main visitors’ centres with the Beaver Meadows Centre being the central headquarter of the park due to its national historic landmarks that were designed by Wright Frank School of Architecture. With such an incredible variety of beautiful scenery and wildlife, the national park attracts tourists from all parts of the world and visitors have been visiting the area over the last 11, 000 years now. The first inhabitants of the national park were the Paleo-Indians who left their traces in the form of stones, but their influence on the area was quite limited (Binkley, pg. 798)
A map illustrating Rocky Mountain National Park
Mummy Mountain
The mountain is situated in the heart of the Mummy Range, and it is considered as the eighth highest peak in the national park. It was quite existing visiting the site but due to the long mountain approach, it is not visited often as other mountains in the national park. Mummy Mountain was formed through the process of volcanic activity, and it is prominently viewed from the Trail Ridge Road. It’s fascinating to climb the mountain as it offers classic scenery with a well-established terrain that provides a suitable habitat for many types of wildlife such as the Bobcat, lions and the Bighorn sheep (Malitz, 25). Over the years, the Mummy Mountain has undergone a transformation as snow through glaciation has caused weathering and erosion on the mountain surface leaving sharp edges on the sides
A picture showing the Mummy Mountain
Lawn Lake
The lake is located just 6.25 miles from the Mummy Range Mountain lying on a 65 acres piece of land at the bottom end of the Roaring River. Lawn Lake is one of the largest subalpine lakes in the Rocky Mountains National Park with a long and flat perimeter that makes exploring easy. The Lake is a glacier lake formed when large ice masses scrubbed off the earth surface forming a large pit where water would later collect. The size and beauty of the lake have been further enhanced by the construction of a dam. This makes it possible to store abundant water for future use when the snow starts melting in the summer. In 1982, the man-made constructed dam failed releasing massive amounts of water in the Roaring River valley and in the catastrophy, three people lost their lives with the total damage cost estimated at $31 million (Wolfe, Van Gorp, and Baron, pg. 157). Due to the gradual erosion caused by water on the riverbanks and the damage caused during the incident, some parts of the Roaring River are quite unstable and very prone to collapsing.
A picture illustrating the Lawn Lake
Horseshoe Falls
The waterfall was formed by glacial erosion (glaciation) on the Fall Valley where the Roaring River passes through. The Roaring River occupies a hanging valley in that it floor lies at a higher level than that of the Fall Valley where it empties. As a result, the Roaring River forms a quick succession of picturesque resulting to the Horseshoe Falls. In my research, knowing and witnessing how the Horseshoe Falls was formed really drew my attention and I was very excited to learn practically.
A picture showing the Horseshoe Falls
Work citied
Binkley, Dan. “Age Distribution of Aspen in Rocky Mountain National Park, USA.” Forest Ecology and Management 255.3-4 (2008): 797–802.
Malitz, Jerome. Rocky Mountain National Park Dayhiker's Guide. Boulder, Colo: Johnson Books, 2008. Print.
Wolfe, Alexander P., Alison C. Van Gorp, and Jill S. Baron. “Recent Ecological and Biogeochemical Changes in Alpine Lakes of Rocky Mountain National Park (Colorado, USA): A Response to Anthropogenic.” Geobiology 1 (2003): 153–168.
