US Tour 2001/Rocky
Mountains Loop
July 23 ~ 28,
2001
The piller of the North American continent, the Rocky Mountain Range,
is a home for a maginificant and famous national parks. They are not only
mountains and peaks; they have interesting geo-thermal activities, beautiful
lakes, glaciar carved canyons, and a lot of wildlives. In this loop, I
drove along the Rocky Mountains, visiting all of the 4 national parks.
If I did not have to worry about my visa, I would have drove into Canada
to visit Banff National Park.
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About
the
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 Sunset at Rocky Mountains National Park. |
The next park, Grand Teton National Park (2), had rugged and peaky mountain ranges. Beautiful lakes lies right next to these mountains. Despite its small size, many people considers this park to be their most favorite park among the Rocky Mountains. The famous Yellowstone National Park (3), the world first national park, was a large park. I would need a few days to get to know the park. But I spend only a day, hiking only major 2 places in the park. Old Faithful was famous for erruption of greysers and beautiful thermal ponds. At Mammoth Springs, I saw one of the most hot springs with incredible shapes. Inbetween the places, there were beautiful forests (although many part were burned from forest fire), and abundant of wildlives. The last park along the Rocky Mountain was the Glacier National Park (4) right at the border with Canada. "Going To The Sun" road, which cut through the park, was probably the most beautiful and scariest road I have ever drove. It climbed up along the glaciar carved canyon walls.
Morning light illuminates the mountains in Grand Teton National Park.
Rocky
Mountains not only provides wonderful mountain sceneries but also abundant
of wildlives. This is the section I saw most of the wildlives: bison, elks,
marmot, mountain sheep, goat, etc.
After seeing all the 4 major national parks in the Rocky Mountains, I only felt I was just introduced to the mountain range. I am sure there are a lot of hidden places that are more incredibly beautiful. One day, I will back to the place to see more of it.
(Left) Marmot and Mountain Goat Humming Glasses in Glacier National Parm.
