photo: Robert Anderson
Longs Peak, at 14,259 ft, pokes well above much of the landscape in Rocky Mountain National Park just to the NW of Boulder, here seen in an aerial photo looking directly west. It is named for the explorer Major Stephen Long who led an expedition to the west in 1820. The tall steep rock cliff leading to the sunlit summit – called The Diamond -- is the site of some of the more famous rock-climbing challenges and adventures in the state. It sits at the head of a long valley that only 18 thousand years ago hosted a big glacier whose edges are recorded by the forested moraine ridges that bound the valley. Glacial ice has repeatedly carved many of the valleys in Colorado’s mountain ranges over the last couple million years, leaving lumpy bedrock valley floors, tall headwalls, and morainal ridges as the clues we have learned to read.
photo: Robert Anderson