Few others settled in this rugged country, and about 1909 Enos Mills, a naturalist, writer, and conservationist, began to campaign for preservation of this pristine area. Mills' campaign succeeded, and the area then became Rocky Mountain National Park in 1915. A feature of the park is the marked differences found with the changing elevation. Gracing the streamsides are blue spruces intermixed with dense stands of lodgepole pines. Here and there appear groves of aspen.
Wildflowers dot meadows and glades.
Openings in these cool, dark forests, produce wildflower gardens of rare beauty and luxuriance, where the blue Colorado columbine reigns. At the upper edges of this zone, the trees are twisted, grotesque, and hug the ground. Then the trees disappear and you are in alpine tundra - a harsh, fragile world. Here, more than one-quarter of the plants you will see can also be found in the Arctic. From the valleys to its mountaintops, Rocky Mountain National Park encompasses many worlds.