panorama from 3 images stitched together. This a lookout point from trail ridge road. This road runs from Estes Park to Grand Lake and opens around Memorial day. If you visit soon after opening, there's still tons of snow. In some areas the snow towers above the roadway 2-3 times the height of your car. This vista is probably near Rock cut and therefore is likely to be at 11,000 feet or higher altitude since it's above treeline.

This a a late spring pano made from about 5 images. It's taken overlooking beaver meadows which is at the lower level of trail ridge road...shortly after entering Rocky Mountain National Park.

This pano is probably a stitch of 7 images or so and it taken above treeline a little higher up that the first image.

To the far left of this image is Long's Peak....the small flattop mountain. In actuality, it's over 14,000 feet tall and is the tallest in the whole "group". It's just much farther away.

Trail Ridge Road. It's twisty, narrow, and has many drop offs that have no guard rails. But when you get over your fear, it's a spectacular ride. It's the closest to flying that I think the average earth bound person can experience. I'll bet the motorcyclists that ride this road get an even more flying type of feeling.

We went back up the "trail" in July. The flowers were still blooming. I didn't get a good picture of them this year though. In 2002 we also came to RMNP and that year, a lot of snow melted in only 2 weeks. That caused the buttercups to all bloom in unison. That was *amazing*. These tiny yellow flowers in the millions/billions perfumed the air and the breeze wafted it around so you got to experience the scent over and over. Wonderful, just wonderful. In the summer of 2004, the snow melted more gradually, so the flowers bloomed over a longer time, so there was no massive blooming to give the same experience.

This is a view of sheep meadow from Fall river road; a one way, dirt hard pack that opens only after the bighorn sheep are done with using it. Up until that point, you can walk it or bicycle it. I'm amazed at the bicyclists that ride up these mountains...they really do it...get all the way to the top. This road goes all the way up to the alpline center at the top of trail ridge road. So it starts at 8,000 feet or so and goes up to a bit under 12,000.

Long's peak viewed from sheep meadow on the way out the North exit of RMNP.

Headed toward Fall River road. There are picnic spots along here. Though, there are LOTS of people trying to use them in the summer.

No one seemed to care that we got off the road and walked into areas without trails. We're not too far from the road here, but very few people seem to veer from the roads and trails. But since this is near an area with a stream that we saw a few fishermen in, we figured it was ok to get off the beaten path.