Wildflowers in the Snow

Wildflowers along the Tundra Communities Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO

My childhood friend Joey, a long-time Colorado resident, tried to prepare me for the Rocky Mountain tundra. I smiled appreciatively, but had my doubts. The only tundra I knew was in Siberia. In any event, it was the middle of July, after all. How “frozen” can tundra look in the middle of summer?

Joey and I were on our way to Rocky Mountain National Park – the only one on my list of the western national parks that I hadn't yet visited.

We arrived in Estes Park, just outside the entrance, the afternoon before we scheduled our tour of the park. It was the last day of this year’s “Rooftop Rodeo,” an annual event that dominates the local scene during mid-July. Our timing couldn’t have been more perfect: we met a number of horse trailers on the road, all of which were returning home. We found a hotel room with no difficulty and immediately set off to inspect the Stanley Hotel (1909), an enormous white landmark on the hillside, and enjoyed a glass of wine on the veranda overlooking the town.
 

Rock Cut, Trail Ridge Rd., Rocky Mountain NP

The next morning, we began our trek on Trail Ridge Road over the Continental Divide. The road starts at Estes Park on the eastern boundary of the park, cuts through the middle of the reserve, and then turns south toward the community of Grand Lake on the park’s western boundary. Due to the difficult terrain and the short construction season, the road took three years to build -- from 1929 to 1933. Workers carved the road through the mountains by blasting through layers of gneiss and schist while contending with the high winds, cool temperatures, cold rain, and sometimes even snow. Reaching 12,183 feet elev., it is the highest continuously paved highway in the United States.

Some 3 million park visitors per year travel the 48-miles of Trail Ridge Road, many of them during the 8 weeks from mid-June to mid-August – that’s around 40,000 - 50,000 visitors per day (!). That sounds like a lot of traffic. However, the photos I took as we traveled through at the very height of the season show a lot of open road. There were always people around, but the park never felt overrun.

Alpine Avens, Acomastylis rossii (Rocky Mountain National Park, CO)

After a long climb up through Rock Cut, our first stop within the park was at the Tundra Communities Trail. Here at last was Joey’s Rocky Mountain Alpine Tundra, an ecosystem found above the tree line on very high mountains. There, tiny, jewel-like flowers bloom in protected rocky crevices in one of the harshest climates on earth, some 11,000 feet above sea level.

Alpine Bluebells, Mertensia alpina (Rocky Mountain National Park, CO)

 Truly one of the great miracles of survival, the alpine wildflower blooms abundantly here, despite gale force winds and heavy snowfall for much of the year. During a growing season of only a few weeks, they must emerge, bloom, set seeds and then again go dormant until the next year. It was cold and wet on the mountain that day, so I was focused on photographing them; identification would have to come later. Since then, I have put names to only a few of them: Alpine Avens, Alpine Sorrel, Elk Thistle, Alpine Bluebells (Mertensia), and a few others.

Alpine Sorrel, Oxyria digyna (Rocky Mountain National Park, CO)

Joey, used to the high altitudes, walked purposefully to the summit, while I, feeling wimpy and breathless, heeded the warnings about altitude sickness and took an easy stroll up the winding path. With camera in hand, I focused my attention on the flowers and the interpretive signs, happy to have an excuse to go slowly.

Leaving Tundra Communities Trail, we followed the road yet higher, up to the junction of Trail Ridge Road and the Old Fall River Road – the original road into the park. There the National Park Service had constructed the Alpine Visitor Center, completed in 1965. It is reported to be the highest facility of its kind in the Park Service. The center’s unique design features a heavy grid of peeled logs installed on top of the roof, which is braced from underneath by heavy timber rafters. This structural system is meant to withstand winds up to 200 mph and an annual snowfall of some 40 – 50 inches. The Park Service’s website shows how the center looks under a typical snowload. http://www.nps.gov/romo/alpine_visitor_center.htm

Alpine Visitor Center, Fall River Pass, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO (July 2010)

We spent a bit of time wandering through the visitor center and then returned to the car to begin our descent into Grand Lake. Reentering the world below the tree line seemed anticlimactic in comparison to the harsh wilderness above. And, while each national park offers its own unique treasures, the delights of Rocky Mountain National Park are hard to surpass.

 
Resources:

Buchholtz, C. W. Rocky Mountain National Park: A History. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1983.

Dahms, David. Rocky Mountain Wildflowers – Pocket Guide. 1999. Rpt. Windsor CO: Paragon Press, 2005.

“Rocky Mountain Region.”Celebrating Wildflowers. Website. Washington DC: United States Forest Service. URL http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/regions/rockymountain/index.shtml accessed November 25, 2010.

Kaiser, Harvey H. The National Park Architecture Sourcebook. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008.

Laine, Don and Barbara. “Rocky Mountain National Park.” Frommer's National Parks of the American West. Hoboken NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc. 2008.

“Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.” National Park Service. Official Website. URL: http://www.nps.gov/romo/index.htm accessed November 26, 2010.

Spellenberg, Richard (Prof. of Biology, New Mexico State University). Ann H. Whitman, Editor. Familiar Flowers of North America – Western Region. National Audubon Society Pocket Guide. 1986. Rpt. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.

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