State Forest State Park
State Forest State Park is a Colorado State Park located in Jackson and Larimer counties east of Walden, United States. The 70,838-acre park was established in 1970 in the Medicine Bow Range of the Rocky Mountains. Facilities include a visitors' center, 187 campsites, over 60 dispersed camping sites, 15 cabins and yurts, picnic sites, boat ramps and 94 miles of hiking trails. About 52,000 acres of the park are forested in lodgepole pine, Douglas fir, Colorado blue spruce and other species. An unprecedented epidemic of Mountain pine beetle is reshaping the park's flora landscape. Wildlife in the park includes bighorn sheep, black bear, mule deer and elk. Park website
National Park Service ranger
National Park Service rangers are among the uniformed employees charged with protecting and preserving areas set aside in the National Park System by the United States Congress and the President of the United States. While all employees of the agency contribute to the National Park Service mission of preserving unimpaired the natural and cultural resources set aside by the American people for future generations, the term "park ranger" is traditionally used to describe all National Park Service employees who wear the uniform. Broadly speaking, all National Park Service rangers promote stewardship of the resources in their care - either voluntary stewardship via resource interpretation, or compliance with statute or regulation through law enforcement; these comprise the two main disciplines of the ranger profession in the National Park Service. The term "ranger" is from a Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400. "Rangers" patrolled royal forests and parks to prevent "poachers" from hunting game claimed by the nobility.
Use of the term "ranger" dates to the 17th century in the United States, was drawn from the word "range". The title "ranger" in the modern sense was first applied to a reorganization of the fire warden force in the Adirondack Park, after fires burned 80,000 acres in the park; the name was taken from Rogers' Rangers, a small force famous for their woodcraft that fought in the area during the French and Indian War beginning in 1755. The term was adopted by the National Park Service; the first Director of the National Park Service, Stephen T. Mather, reflected upon the early park rangers in the US National Parks as follows: They are a fine, earnest and public-spirited body of men, these rangers. Though small in number, their influence is large. Many and long are the duties. If a trail is to be blazed, it is "send a ranger." If an animal is floundering in the snow, a ranger is sent to pull him out. If a Dude wants to know the why, if a Sagebrusher is puzzled about a road, it is "ask the ranger." Everything the ranger knows, he will tell ex-cept about himself.
Horace Albright, second director of the National Park Service, called Harry Yount, gamekeeper of Yellowstone National Park, the "father of the ranger service, as well as the first national park ranger". Yount was hired in 1880 to enforce the prohibition on hunting in the park. In addition to these duties, he would act as a guide and escort for visiting officials, such as he did in 1880 for the Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz. Although he was paid a yearly salary of $1,000 he resigned at the end of 1881. Before leaving, he suggested to the superintendent of Yellowstone that "...the game and natural curiosities of the park be protected by officers stationed at different points of the park with authority to enforce observance of laws of the park maintenance and trails." Yount pointed out that it was nearly impossible for one person to protect the game properly over the park's vast expanse. The park ranger position in the federal government began as a series of specialized positions in the miscellaneous Series.
In 1959, the official park ranger position was established throughout the federal government. Along with its companion series the park technician; the park ranger position was designated for "professional" work like management of the park, or management of division. The park technician series was designed to handle routine technical skills, i.e. giving walks, patrolling roads, fee collection. After years of concern of pay, the National Park Service and the Office of Personnel Management agreed to consolidate the two series into a single group, to be used only for professional positions and temporary or seasonal positions; the agreement required that the park service begin using other appropriate technical series for lower paid positions. The protection ranger series was changed to "GL"-0025 in 2005. 0025 – park ranger series* - The duties are to supervise and perform work in the conservation and use of federal park resources. This involves functions such as park conservation; the work requires a knowledge of techniques involved in handling special programs.
This series is used for fee collectors at campgrounds and entrance stations. 0189 – recreation aid and assistant series - Provides support to recreation programs by performing limited aspects of recreation work, lifeguards 0090 – guide series - Provides or supervises interpretive and guide services to visitors to sites of public interest. Give formal talks about natural and historic features, explains engineering structures and related water developments, answers questions, guides tours; the duties of the modern park ranger are as varied and diverse as the parks where they serve, in recent years have become more specialized - though they intertwine. Regardless of the regular duties of any one discipline, the goal of all rangers remains to protect the park resources for future generations and to protect park visitors; this goal is accomplished by the professionalism and sometimes overlapping of the different functions and specialties. For example, an interpretive ranger may be
National Wilderness Preservation System
The National Wilderness Preservation System of the United States protects federally managed wilderness areas designated for preservation in their natural condition. Activity on formally designated wilderness areas is coordinated by the National Wilderness Preservation System. Wilderness areas are managed by four federal land management agencies: the National Park Service, the U. S. Forest Service, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management; the term "wilderness" is defined as "an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain" and "an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions." As of 2016, there are 765 designated wilderness areas, totaling 109,129,657 acres, or about 4.5% of the area of the United States. During the 1950s and 1960s, as the American transportation system was on the rise, concern for clean air and water quality began to grow.
A conservation movement began to take place with the intent of establishing designated wilderness areas. Howard Zahniser created the first draft of the Wilderness Act in 1956, it took nine years and 65 rewrites before the Wilderness Act was passed in 1964. The Wilderness Act of 1964, which established the NWPS, was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 3, 1964; the Wilderness Act mandated that the National Park Service, U. S. Forest Service, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service review all federal lands under their jurisdiction for wilderness areas to include in the NWPS; the first national forest wilderness areas were established by the Wilderness Act itself. The Great Swamp in New Jersey became the first National Wildlife Refuge with formally designated wilderness in 1968. Wilderness areas in national parks followed, beginning with the designation of wilderness in part of Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho in 1970. A dramatic spike in acreage added to the wilderness system in 1980 was due in large part to the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980.
A smaller spike in 1984 came with the passage of many bills establishing national forest wilderness areas identified by the Forest Service's Roadless Area Review and Evaluation process. The Bureau of Land Management was not required to review its lands for inclusion in the NWPS until after October 21, 1976, when the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 was signed into law. Over 200 wilderness areas have been created within Bureau of Land Management administered lands since consisting of 8.71 million acres in September 2015. As of August 2008, a total of 704 separate wilderness areas, encompassing 107,514,938 acres, had become part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. With the passage of the Omnibus Public Lands Act in March 2009, there were 756 wilderness areas; as of September 2015, the system includes 765 wilderness areas totaling 109,129,657 acres. On federal lands in the United States, Congress may designate an area as wilderness under the provisions of the Wilderness Act of 1964.
Multiple agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the U. S. Forest Service, are responsible for the submission of new areas that fit the criteria to become wilderness to congress. Congress reviews these cases on a state by state basis and determines which areas and how much land in each area will become part of the WPS. There have been multiple occasions in which congress designated more federal land than had been recommended by the nominating agency. Whereas the Wilderness Act stipulated that a wilderness area must be "administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such a manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness", the Eastern Wilderness Act, which added 16 National Forest areas to the NWPS, allowed for the inclusion of areas, modified by human interference; the Wilderness Act provides criteria for lands being considered for wilderness designation. Though there are some exceptions, the following conditions must be present for an area to be included in the NWPS: the land is under federal ownership and management, the area consists of at least five thousand acres of land, human influence is "substantially unnoticeable," there are opportunities for solitude and recreation, the area possesses "ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, scenic, or historical value."
Wilderness areas are subject to specific management restrictions. During these activities, patrons are asked to abide by the "Leave No Trace" policy; this policy sets guidelines for using the wilderness responsibly, leaving the area as it was before usage. These guidelines include: Packing all trash out of the wilderness, using a stove as opposed to a fire, camping at least 200 feet from trails or water sources, staying on marked trails, keeping group size small; when observed, the "Leave No Trace" ethos ensures that wilderness areas remain untainted by human interaction. In general, the law prohibits logging, mechanized vehicles, road-building, other forms of development in wilderness areas, though pre-existing mining claims and grazing ranges are permitted through grandf
Geography of Colorado
The geography of the U. S. State of Colorado is diverse, encompassing both rugged mountainous terrain, vast plains, desert lands, desert canyons, mesas. In 1861, the United States Congress defined the boundaries of the new Territory of Colorado by lines of latitude and longitude, stretching from 37°N to 41°N latitude, from 102°02'48"W to 109°02'48"W longitude. Starting in 1868, official surveys demarcated the boundaries, deviating from the parallels and meridians in several places. Surveys attempted to correct some of these mistakes but in 1925 the U. S. Supreme Court affirmed; the borders of Colorado are now defined by 697 boundary markers connected by straight boundary lines. Colorado and Utah are the only states that have their borders defined by straight boundary lines with no natural features; the southwest corner of Colorado is the Four Corners Monument at 36°59'56"N, 109°2'43"W. This is the only place in the United States where four states meet: Colorado, New Mexico and Utah; the summit of Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet elevation in Lake County is the state's highest point and the highest point in the Rocky Mountains of North America.
Colorado has 550 mountain peaks that exceed 4000 meters elevation. Colorado is the only U. S. state that lies above 1000 meters elevation. The state's lowest elevation is 3,317 feet at the point on the eastern boundary of Yuma County where the Arikaree River flows into the state of Kansas. To the east of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado are the Colorado Eastern Plains/High Plains, the section of the Great Plains within Colorado at elevations ranging from 3,500 to 7,000 feet; the Midwest states of Kansas and Nebraska border Colorado to the northeast. The plains are sparsely settled with most population along the Arkansas rivers. Rainfall is meager, averaging about 15 inches annually. There is some irrigated farming. Winter wheat is a typical crop and most small towns in the region boast both a water tower and a grain elevator; the bulk of Colorado's population lives along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains in the Front Range Urban Corridor. This region is protected from prevailing storms by the high mountains to the west.
To the west lies the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains with notable peaks such as Longs Peak, Mount Evans, Pikes Peak, the Spanish Peaks near Walsenburg in the south. This area drains to the east, is forested, urbanized. With urbanization, utilization of the forest for timbering and grazing resulted in accumulation of fuel. During the drought of 2002 devastating forest fires swept this area; the Continental Divide stretches along the crest of the Rocky Mountains. To the west of the Continental Divide is the Western Slope. Water west of the Continental Divide drains west into the Pacific Ocean via the Colorado River. Western Colorado is made up of mountains, desert canyons, desert lands. Within the interior of the Rocky Mountains are high broad basins. In the north, on the east side of the Continental Divide is North Park. North Park is drained by the North Platte River, which flows north into the northwest state of Wyoming. Just south but on the west side of the Continental Divide is Middle Park, drained by the Colorado River.
South Park is the headwaters of the South Platte River. To the south lies the San Luis Valley, the headwaters of the Rio Grande, which drains into New Mexico. Across the Sangre de Cristo Range to the east of the San Luis Valley lies the Wet Mountain Valley; these basins the San Luis Valley, lie along the Rio Grande Rift, a major tectonic feature. See Rift; the Rocky Mountains within Colorado contain 54 peaks that are 14,000 feet or higher, known as fourteeners. The mountains are timbered with conifers and aspen to the tree line, at an elevation of about 12,000 feet in southern Colorado to about 10,500 feet in northern Colorado; the Rockies are snow-covered only in the winter. The Colorado Mineral Belt, stretching from the San Juan Mountains in the southwest to Boulder and Central City on the front range, contains most of the historic gold and silver mining districts of Colorado; the Western Slope is drained by the Colorado River and its tributaries. Notable to the south are the San Juan Mountains, an rugged mountain range, to the west of the San Juans, the Colorado Plateau, a high desert bordering Southern Utah.
Grand Junction is the largest city on the Western Slope. Grand Junction is served by Interstate Highway I-70. To the southeast of Grand Junction is Grand Mesa, a large flat-topped desert mountain. Further east are the ski resorts of Aspen, Crested Butte, Steamboat Springs; the northwestern corner of Colorado bordering Northern Utah and Western Wyoming is sparsely populated rangeland. From west to east, the state consists of desert basins, desert canyons and mesas, turning into desert plateaus alpine mountains, the grasslands of the High Plains. Mount Elbert is the highest peak in the Rocky Mountains of North America; the famous Pikes Peak is just west of Colorado Springs. Its lone peak is visible from near the Kansas border on clear days. Outline of Colorado Index of Colorado-related articles Colorado 4000 meter peaks Colorado counties Colorado drainage basins Colorado geographic regions Colorado mountain passes Colorado mountain peaks Colorado mountain ranges Colorado Plateau High Plains (United St
Denver
Denver the City and County of Denver, is the capital and most populous municipality of the U. S. state of Colorado. Denver is located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains; the Denver downtown district is east of the confluence of Cherry Creek with the South Platte River 12 mi east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Denver is named after James W. Denver, a governor of the Kansas Territory, it is nicknamed the Mile High City because its official elevation is one mile above sea level; the 105th meridian west of Greenwich, the longitudinal reference for the Mountain Time Zone, passes directly through Denver Union Station. Denver is ranked as a Beta world city by World Cities Research Network. With an estimated population of 704,621 in 2017, Denver is the 19th-most populous U. S. city, with a 17.41% increase since the 2010 United States Census, it has been one of the fastest-growing major cities in the United States.
The 10-county Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area had an estimated 2017 population of 2,888,227 and is the 19th most populous U. S. metropolitan statistical area. The 12-city Denver-Aurora, CO Combined Statistical Area had an estimated 2017 population of 3,515,374 and is the 15th most populous U. S. metropolitan area. Denver is the most populous city of the 18-county Front Range Urban Corridor, an oblong urban region stretching across two states with an estimated 2017 population of 4,895,589. Denver is the most populous city within a 500-mile radius and the second-most populous city in the Mountain West after Phoenix, Arizona. In 2016, Denver was named the best place to live in the United States by U. S. News & World Report. In the summer of 1858, during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush, a group of gold prospectors from Lawrence, Kansas established Montana City as a mining town on the banks of the South Platte River in what was western Kansas Territory; this was the first historical settlement in what was to become the city of Denver.
The site faded however, by the summer of 1859 it was abandoned in favor of Auraria and St. Charles City. On November 22, 1858, General William Larimer and Captain Jonathan Cox, both land speculators from eastern Kansas Territory, placed cottonwood logs to stake a claim on the bluff overlooking the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek, across the creek from the existing mining settlement of Auraria, on the site of the existing townsite of St. Charles. Larimer named the townsite Denver City to curry favor with Kansas Territorial Governor James W. Denver. Larimer hoped the town's name would help make it the county seat of Arapaho County but, unbeknownst to him, Governor Denver had resigned from office; the location was accessible to existing trails and was across the South Platte River from the site of seasonal encampments of the Cheyenne and Arapaho. The site of these first towns is now the site of Confluence Park near downtown Denver. Larimer, along with associates in the St. Charles City Land Company, sold parcels in the town to merchants and miners, with the intention of creating a major city that would cater to new immigrants.
Denver City was a frontier town, with an economy based on servicing local miners with gambling, saloons and goods trading. In the early years, land parcels were traded for grubstakes or gambled away by miners in Auraria. In May 1859, Denver City residents donated 53 lots to the Leavenworth & Pike's Peak Express in order to secure the region's first overland wagon route. Offering daily service for "passengers, mail and gold", the Express reached Denver on a trail that trimmed westward travel time from twelve days to six. In 1863, Western Union furthered Denver's dominance of the region by choosing the city for its regional terminus; the Colorado Territory was created on February 28, 1861, Arapahoe County was formed on November 1, 1861, Denver City was incorporated on November 7, 1861. Denver City served as the Arapahoe County Seat from 1861 until consolidation in 1902. In 1867, Denver City became the acting territorial capital, in 1881 was chosen as the permanent state capital in a statewide ballot.
With its newfound importance, Denver City shortened its name to Denver. On August 1, 1876, Colorado was admitted to the Union. Although by the close of the 1860s, Denver residents could look with pride at their success establishing a vibrant supply and service center, the decision to route the nation's first transcontinental railroad through Cheyenne, rather than Denver, threatened the prosperity of the young town. A daunting 100 miles away, citizens mobilized to build a railroad to connect Denver to the transcontinental railroad. Spearheaded by visionary leaders including Territorial Governor John Evans, David Moffat, Walter Cheesman, fundraising began. Within three days, $300,000 had been raised, citizens were optimistic. Fundraising stalled before enough was raised, forcing these visionary leaders to take control of the debt-ridden railroad. Despite challenges, on June 24, 1870, citizens cheered as the Denver Pacific completed the link to the transcontinental railroad, ushering in a new age of prosperity for Denver.
Linked to the rest of the nation by rail, Denver prospered as a service and supply center. The young city grew during these years, attracting millionaires with their mansions, as well as the poverty and crime of a growing city. Denver citizens were proud when the rich chose Denver and were thrilled when Horace Tabor, the Leadville mining millionaire, built an impressive business block at 16th and Larimer as well as the el
James Peak Wilderness
The James Peak Wilderness is a U. S. Wilderness Area in north central Colorado in the Arapaho and Roosevelt national forests; the wilderness area borders Indian Peaks Wilderness to the north and the James Peak Protection Area to the west. The wilderness area encompasses 17,015 acres east of the Continental Divide in Gilpin County and Clear Creek County; the wilderness is named after 13,294-foot James Peak. Parry Peak is the highest peak in the James Peak Wilderness, at 13,391 feet; the wilderness was established by H. R.1576 in the 107th Congress. James Peak was named after Edwin James and botanist. Pikes Peak was named James Peak prior to Pike's exploration journey. After the renaming to Pikes Peak, the current James Peak was named
Estes Park, Colorado
Estes Park is a statutory town in Larimer County, United States. A popular summer resort and the location of the headquarters for Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park lies along the Big Thompson River. Estes Park had a population of 5,858 at the 2010 census. Landmarks include The Baldpate Inn; the town overlooks Lake Estes and Olympus Dam. Before Europeans came to the Estes Park valley, the Arapaho Indians lived there in the summertime and called the valley "the Circle." When three elderly Arapahoes visited Estes Park in 1914, they pointed out sites they remembered from their younger days. A photograph at the Estes Park Museum identified the touring party as guide. In the 1850s, the Arapaho had spent summers camped around Mary's Lake, where their rock fireplaces, tipi sites, dance rings were still visible, they recalled building eagle traps atop Long's Peak to get the war feathers coveted by all tribes. They remembered their routes to and from the valley in detail, naming landmarks, they pointed out the site of their buffalo trap, described the use of dogs to pack meat out of the valley.
Their recollections included a battle with Apaches in the 1850s, fights with Utes who came to the area to hunt bighorn sheep, so all three of those tribes used the valley's resources. Whites came into the Estes Park valley before the 1850s as trappers, but did not stay long; the town is named after Missouri native Joel Estes, who founded the community in 1859. Estes moved his family there in 1863. One of Estes' early visitors was William Byers, a newspaper editor who wrote of his ascent of Long's Peak in 1864, publicizing the area as a pristine wilderness. Griff Evans and his family came to Estes Park in 1867 to act as caretakers for the former Estes ranch. Recognizing the potential for tourism, he began building cabins to accommodate travelers. Soon it was known as the first dude ranch in Estes Park, with guides for hunting and mountaineering; the 4th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, a young Anglo-Irish peer, arrived in late December 1872 under the guidance of Texas Jack Omohundro, subsequently made numerous visits, decided to take over the valley for his own private hunting preserve.
Lord Dunraven's'land grab' didn't work, but he controlled 6,000 acres before he changed tactics and opened the area's first resort, the Estes Park Hotel, destroyed by fire in 1911. In 1873, Englishwoman Isabella Bird, the daughter of an Anglican minister, came to the United States. Landing at San Francisco, she came overland to Colorado, where she borrowed a horse and set out to explore the Rocky Mountains with a guide, the notorious James Nugent, aka'Rocky Mountain Jim', she wrote a memoir of their travels, including the breathtaking ascent of Long's Peak, where she was hauled up the steep pitches "like a bale of goods."On June 19, 1874, Rocky Mountain Jim and neighbor Griff Evans had an argument. Having had bitter history with each other and Evans hated each other and were deep personal rivals when it came to tour guiding tourists; the argument escalated. Evans traveled to Fort Collins to file an assault charge against Nugent, but he was arrested and tried for first degree murder when Jim Nugent died on September 9, 1874, of the bullet wound.
Evans was put on trial, but the case was soon dismissed due to the lack of witnesses to the shooting. On August 9, 1875, the Loveland court-house acquitted Evans of any charges in the case. William Henry Jackson photographed Estes Park in 1873. Alex and Clara MacGregor homesteaded at the foot of Lumpy Ridge; the MacGregor Ranch has been preserved as a historic site. In 1874, MacGregor incorporated a company to build a new toll road from Lyons, Colorado, to Estes Park; the road became what is today U. S. Highway 36. Before that time, the "road" was only a trail fit for pack horses; the improved road brought more visitors into Estes Park. In 1884, Enos Mills came to Estes Park, where his relative Elkanah Lamb lived; that move proved significant for Estes Park because Mills became a naturalist and conservationist who devoted his life after 1909 to preserving nearly a thousand square miles of Colorado as Rocky Mountain National Park. He succeeded and the park was dedicated in 1915. Enos Mills' younger brother Joe Mills came to Estes Park in 1889.
He wrote a series of articles about his youthful experiences for Boys Life which were published as a book. After some years as a college athletics coach, he and his wife returned to Estes Park and built a hotel called The Crags on the north side of Prospect Mountain, overlooking the village, they ran that business in the summer while he continued his coaching career in winters at University of Colorado in Boulder. Many early visitors came to Estes Park in search of better health; the Rocky Mountain West attracted those with pulmonary diseases, in Estes Park some resorts catered to them, providing staff physicians for their care. In 1903, a new road was opened from Loveland through the Big Thompson River canyon to Estes Park, increasing access to the valley. In 1907, three Loveland men established the first auto stage line from Loveland to Estes Park with three five-passenger touring Stanley Steamers; the following year, Mr. Stanley built nine-passenger steam busses and opened a bus line between Lyons and Estes Park.
By 1912, Estes
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