This was the view this morning from the Alpine Visitor Center (elev. 11,796 ft.) in Rocky Mountain National Park. Estes Park is down in the valley, through that hole under the clouds.
I may be more enamored with clouds on the peaks than with broad sunny vistas of the peaks themselves. I’ve been known to sit and watch the clouds play for an hour or more. Depending on conditions, they can sail by like stately ships, or swirl in eddies around the peaks, or appear magically in the valleys and silently float away.
Better than this view, of course, is the rain it means for a very dry mountain range.
You may ask why, if I love it so much, I don’t drive up there to experience it in person. In the past I have. But it would take a minimum of two hours to get to this point on Trail Ridge Road, a long haul for me these days. (And that assumes I’d planned ahead and gotten a reservation.) Longer still would be the drive home back into Denver-area traffic, with fatigue setting in.
So here I sit, watcher of webcams. And grateful for every one of them.
Partly sunny down below, but most of the peaks are still under. That is a pretty shot. Lots of folks heading up the Old Road this morning, too!
I get all kinds of feels from a scene like this. It’s like all my senses wake up. I’m sure part of it is having lived most of my life in Oklahoma, where the clouds were always way up there instead of in front of me, around me, or below me. They’re magical.
So moody and beautiful
It certainly is. I grabbed the screenshot as soon as the view popped up on my screen.