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Corridors · Vol. 016Byway

Three curves, three rocks and an altitude

An All-American Road in Colorado whose whole catalogue of views fits in eleven straight-line miles, with the tallest listed summits standing closest to it.

Trail Ridge Road/Beaver Meadow Road has ten lookouts on its roster. Read their coordinates and all ten fit inside eleven miles in a straight line, from Farview Curve Overlook at the western end of the list to Horseshoe Park at the eastern. Taken in the order they are listed, only two of the gaps between them are longer than a mile and a half.

Ten overlooks inside eleven straight-line miles, and one of them named for a height instead of a thing.

What the ten are named for

Three are named for curves: Farview Curve Overlook, Medicine Bow Curve, Many Parks Curve. Three are named for rock: Lava Cliffs, Rock Cut, Mushroom Rocks. Two are named for what they look out over, the Gore Range and Forest Canyon. One is named for a park, Horseshoe Park.

And one is recorded simply as 2 miles above sea level. It is the only entry on the list named for a number rather than a thing. Every other lookout tells you what you are looking at, or what the road is doing when you get there. This one tells you only a height.

The summits are tallest where the lookouts are

The peaks listed within three miles of the road say something similar in metres. Past Horseshoe Park, to the east, Oldman Mountain, Castle Mountain and Prospect Mountain are listed between 2,531 and 2,699 metres. Within three miles of a lookout, Specimen Mountain is listed at 3,798, Mount Julian at 3,940 and Mount Chiquita at 3,978.

Two miles is about 3,219 metres. Specimen Mountain, the listed peak nearest the lookout that carries that name, is listed at nearly 580 metres more than the name claims, about two and a quarter miles away in a straight line.

Where the lookouts stop

The byway runs on past both ends of the roster. The Estes Park Women's Monument sits on it almost six miles east of Horseshoe Park in a straight line, with no lookout in between. At the other end, the Kauffman House Museum is just under a mile off the route and about ten miles from Farview Curve.

So the catalogued views do not spread themselves along the road. They wait for the stretch where the listed summits are highest, then crowd in close enough that Rock Cut and Mushroom Rocks are a third of a mile apart, and then they stop.

What that makes the drive

The two longer gaps are about four miles and about four and a half: one after the lookout called 2 miles above sea level, one after Forest Canyon Overlook. Everything else on the list is within a mile and a half of the next entry.

Eleven straight-line miles is a short stretch and a long list. Every stop on it is a bend, a rock, a view, a park or a height.

Take it slowly and pull off at the curves. Stand at Forest Canyon for longer than the mileage suggests. A lookout named for an altitude is asking you to notice something you cannot see, so give it a minute and notice it.

The song · Vol. 016

The Air Gets Thin

On Byway
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