In 1859 Joel Estes and his son, Milton, rode into the valley that bears their name. 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. In 1915 Rocky Mountain National Park, the nation's tenth, was dedicated. A feature of the park is the marked differences found with the changing elevation. Here and there appear groves of aspens.
Wildflowers grace meadows and glades.
Above 9,000 feet forests of Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir take over in the subalpine ecosystem. Openings in these cool, dark forests produce wildflower gardens of rare beauty and luxuriance. At the upper edges of this ecosystem, the trees' growth assumes beautiful and unusual forms. Here, more than one-quarter of the plants you will see also can be found in the Arctic. From the valleys to its mountaintops, Rocky Mountain National Park encompasses many worlds.