Mummy Range

Bighorn sheep move to low elevations in late spring and early summer, when they descend from the Mummy Range to Sheep Lakes in Horseshoe Park. Here, they graze and eat soil to obtain minerals not found in their high ...

Grand Lake

In the late 1860s, suffering from rhuematism, Joseph Wescott became the first resident of Grand Lake looking to use the Hot Sulphur Springs of Middle Park as a cure and relief.

By 1868, pioneers began settling in Grand Lake ...

Bear Lake

Many fires swept through what is now the national park between 1850 and the early 1900's. A walk around Bear Lake passes through forests that regenerated after large fires at the turn of the century. In 1956, Climber Patrick ...

Ute Trail

Between A.D. 400 and 650, the Ute people finally laid claim to these mountains through occasional summer visits, and to the hunting grounds on either side. And for a while at least, between A.D. 650 and 1000, game-drive systems ...

Grand Ditch

From 1895-1935, Grand Ditch was built to bring water from Never Summer Range across La Poudre Pass and down the Cache Le Poudre to the plains for agriculture. According to historian D. Ferrel Atkins, this project was one of the ...

Andrews Glacier and Tarn

Today, the park’s small glaciers are restricted to high elevations above 11,000 feet (3,350 m) and north- and east- facing cirques, where they are sheltered from the Sun’s direct rays. Local topography helps to shelter the glaciers and directs wind- ...

Estes Park

In 1858, Joel Estes entered what is now Estes Park and started a ranch. The first Estes Valley settlers in the early 1860's found many mule deer. But due to people, predators and harsh elements the population dropped. Around ...

Never Summer Ranch

Throughout the late 1870s prospectors filtered into the mountains, especially into the Rabbit Ear Range (today's Never Summer Range). Thus the prospector became a familiar figure throughout the Front Range and Never Summer Range for decades to follow.

From ...

Longs Peak Inn

A native of Fort Scott, Kansas, Enos Abijah Mills first came to Estes Park at the age of fourteen. In 1901, he negotiated with Carlyle Lamb for the purchase of Longs Peak Inn. Finally in 1902, Mills bought the ...

Longs Peak

In 1820, Major Stephen Long’s expedition on the plains, and was the first non-Indians to see Longs Peak. In 1865, Jules Verne published From the Earth to the Moon using Longs Peak as an astronomical observatory. The adventurous editor ...