Colorado River Valley EarthCache
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Rocky Mountain National Park is located west of Estes Park and north and east of Grand Lake. This is a fee area of the National Park Service, and costs $30 per vehicle. This fee is covered in the Rocky Mountain National Park Annual Pass, the Rocky Mountain National Park/Arapaho National Recreation Area Annual Pass, and the America the Beautiful Pass. Please see the following website (visit link) for the entire fee schedule. The park is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Road and Trail Conditions and Closures can be found at: (visit link) Recorded information for the condition of Trail Ridge Road can be found by calling (970) 586-1222. Please remember that all geologic features within the borders of Rocky Mountain National Park are protected by law, as are all natural and historic features. Please do not disturb, damage, or remove any rocks, plants, or animals.
This EarthCache can be reached by several routes, the easiest being to take Colorado Highway 14 up the Cache la Poudre Canyon west of Ft. Collins to the intersection of Long Draw Road at N 40 34.776 W 105 51.214. Take Long Draw Road south for approximately 13 miles, past the Long Draw Reservoir, and park at the end of the road at the La Poudre Pass Trailhead. The Grand Ditch Trail consists of the ditch service road next to the Grand Ditch, and this cache is about a 3 mile hike along this trail from the parking area. Though the trail is relatively flat, you will be above 10,200’ for the entire hike, so plan accordingly. Take extra water, some snacks, and rain gear for potential afternoon rainstorms. If you begin to feel the effects of elevation, take a rest and drink some water. The only real cure for altitude sickness is to get to a lower elevation.
Looking to the south and west from this location, you can see the evidence of the glacial episodes that have shaped this landscape. Southwards, you are overlooking the Colorado River Valley from a point about 2 miles from its origin. To the west, the wide U-shaped valleys which go up into Box Canyon and Skeleton Gulch both end in large, bowl-shaped cirques.
A fault zone runs down the valley to the south, splitting the relatively young Never Summer Mountains from the ancient mountains on the east side of the valley. The Never Summer Mountains are the remnants of volcanoes that erupted about 24 - 29 million years ago, and have since been eroded through various processes (primarily glaciation) to their present form. The rocks on the east side of the valley are mostly granite, schist, and gneiss, and are aged to about 1.4 - 1.7 billion years old.
Much of the surface rock you see, especially on the west side of the valley, is glacial till from the Pinedale Age of glaciation. The Pinedale Glaciation lasted for about 20,000 years, and took place from about 10,000 to 30,000 years ago.
To log this EarthCache, send me an email with the answers to these questions:
1. Which direction were the glaciers from Box Canyon and Skeleton Gulch moving as they flowed down to meet with the glacier in the Colorado River Valley?
Please consider posting photos of yourself, or the local geology, when you log this EarthCache. Photos can be an additional rewarding part of your journey, but posting them is not a requirement for logging this EarthCache, and is strictly optional.
The above information was compiled from the following sources:
2004. Rocky Mountain National Park. In Harris, A.G. et al., editors. Geology of National Parks, Sixth Ed. P. 337-356. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.
Colorado Geological Survey. 2003. Messages in Stone. Matthews et al., editors. Denver, Colorado.
Hopkins, R.L., and Hopkins L.B. 2004. Hiking Colorado’s Geology. Seattle, Washington.
Cole, J.C., and Braddock, W.A. 2009. Geologic map of the Estes Park 30’ x 60’ quadrangle, north-central Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3039, 1 sheet, scale 1:100,000, 1 pamphlet, 56 p.
Rocky Mountain National Park. Online at: (visit link)
Rocky Mountain National Park was most helpful in the background discussion, aid in the choosing of sites, and review of this EarthCache. My thanks to the Park for allowing the placement of this EarthCache!
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)