Tundra Winds Images by Donna
Horseshoe Falls, Alluvial Fan, Rocky Mtn. Natl Park #1
It was a calm, sunny morning, July 15, 1982. I had just finished my last nature walk along the Bear Lake Road for the morning as a National Park Service Interpretive Technician (the govt. always likes to embellish job names: in all actuality, I was a "bug-stuffer", a Naturalist who led walks and evening campfire talks). I parked my govt. vehicle in the govt. garage, and got into my personal car to return home to await the evening when I would give the Naturalist program at the Aspenglen Campground (as it turned out, I got the night off.....). When I started my personal car, the radio was tuned to the local radio station and I was totally confused. The tramatic Big Thompson Flood was only 6 years prior, and it was on Aug. 1st. Was this radio program a review for some reason? I listened in total disbelief as I heard about people taking pictures from the tops of buildings in Estes Park.........the Roaring River had flooded as the Lawn Lake Dam in the back country above Horseshoe Park had broken. On a sunny, calm morning. No one could be thinking about a flood on a day like that.......and yet, people were missing in the Aspenglen Campground, and buildings were flooded in the tourist town of Estes Park. Campers along the Lawn Lake trail were missing as well! It was a catastrophic event that changed the face of Estes Park, from a honky-tonk tourist trap to a modern, managed tourist destination. I've always thought it would take a disaster to change the face of the town. I had been right. The entire face of Horsehoe Park in the National Park was changed as well, but on a natural scope. Trees and rocks came raining down......a new lake was dammed in the center of Horseshoe Park, and the power of water was graphically pointed out to the masses. Today there is a lovely walkway over the Roaring Fork, aspen and willows have replaced the big pines that hid the falls, and an interpretive opportunity has been taken. On this fall day, as I photographed the falls, I remembered that day so many years ago when I was just out of college, working as an "Interpretive Technician". Today it is quite beautiful, but thirty years ago it was raw and and pretty devastating. The dam, by the way, was old, and had been placed on Lawn Lake in 1903 by a consortium of farmers from the Loveland, CO area. There are many such water diversions in Rocky Mtn Natl Park, all constructed before the 1915 establishment of the Park. The State of Colorado is mandated to inspect dams within the State, and were deemed at blame for the failure of the earthen dam on Lawn Lake. Despite the catastrophe, It's a wonderful thing to be able to record beauty from destruction. Nature generally heals itself well.
Horseshoe Falls, Alluvial Fan, Rocky Mtn. Natl Park #1
It was a calm, sunny morning, July 15, 1982. I had just finished my last nature walk along the Bear Lake Road for the morning as a National Park Service Interpretive Technician (the govt. always likes to embellish job names: in all actuality, I was a "bug-stuffer", a Naturalist who led walks and evening campfire talks). I parked my govt. vehicle in the govt. garage, and got into my personal car to return home to await the evening when I would give the Naturalist program at the Aspenglen Campground (as it turned out, I got the night off.....). When I started my personal car, the radio was tuned to the local radio station and I was totally confused. The tramatic Big Thompson Flood was only 6 years prior, and it was on Aug. 1st. Was this radio program a review for some reason? I listened in total disbelief as I heard about people taking pictures from the tops of buildings in Estes Park.........the Roaring River had flooded as the Lawn Lake Dam in the back country above Horseshoe Park had broken. On a sunny, calm morning. No one could be thinking about a flood on a day like that.......and yet, people were missing in the Aspenglen Campground, and buildings were flooded in the tourist town of Estes Park. Campers along the Lawn Lake trail were missing as well! It was a catastrophic event that changed the face of Estes Park, from a honky-tonk tourist trap to a modern, managed tourist destination. I've always thought it would take a disaster to change the face of the town. I had been right. The entire face of Horsehoe Park in the National Park was changed as well, but on a natural scope. Trees and rocks came raining down......a new lake was dammed in the center of Horseshoe Park, and the power of water was graphically pointed out to the masses. Today there is a lovely walkway over the Roaring Fork, aspen and willows have replaced the big pines that hid the falls, and an interpretive opportunity has been taken. On this fall day, as I photographed the falls, I remembered that day so many years ago when I was just out of college, working as an "Interpretive Technician". Today it is quite beautiful, but thirty years ago it was raw and and pretty devastating. The dam, by the way, was old, and had been placed on Lawn Lake in 1903 by a consortium of farmers from the Loveland, CO area. There are many such water diversions in Rocky Mtn Natl Park, all constructed before the 1915 establishment of the Park. The State of Colorado is mandated to inspect dams within the State, and were deemed at blame for the failure of the earthen dam on Lawn Lake. Despite the catastrophe, It's a wonderful thing to be able to record beauty from destruction. Nature generally heals itself well.