Saturday my friend Charlie and I went up to Rocky Mountain National Park to do some fishing. The parking lot is 8570ft and it's .82 miles to the "top". This is where you can first see the river. It's not really the top but the climb isn't as steep at this point. It's 9000ft at this point and we did it in 26 minutes. Here's a few pics from the top.
The valley floor.
Longs Peak.
The river.
In 1982 the Lawn Lake Dam up stream failed and released 220 million gallons of water! Three people were killed, one was never found. The elevation drops 2500ft in 6 miles so it was moving right along! The damage is still very much evident. In the first picture you see where the water hit the valley. Here's a couple of other pics of the damage.
Here's another shot of the river.
And here are some of the fish we cought.
Here's a few of the flowers I saw.
Some of the people that we saw up there amazed me! They were at least a mile and a half from their vehicle with shorts, a tee shirt and a bottle of water. The weather can turn up there in a heart beat and I've seen it snow in late June. Then on our way out there was a guy jogging alone, at dusk listening to his Ipod. Nothing screams "lunch" louder to a Mountain Lion.  And they have warnings up about the cats too but I suppose that Darwin will have his day.
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The unarmed man is not only defenseless, he is also contemptible.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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This is perfect because you can take the picture and release the fish without ever touching it. And the fish is in water for the photo. I hope to get alot more use out of it this summer.
