The name Estes Park brings to mind the modern definition of "park", but in this case that definition is inaccurate. "Park" in this area, in times when mountainmen, pioneers and explorers first arrived here, was given to mean "valley" - between mountains. As well as Estes Park (named for one of its earliest discoverers, Joel Estes, a hunter, there are Middle Park, North Park and South Park and many others, probably still un-named. Meadows within the valleys have always been feeding grounds for the abundant wildlife, and latterly in the case of Estes Park, the site for a small town.
Isabella Bird, upon arriving in Estes Park, when no town of that name then existed, wrote to her sister thus:
"Estes Park !!! I wish I could let those three notes of admiration go to you instead of a letter.They mean everything that is rapturous and delightful - grandeur, cheerfulness, health, enjoyment, novelty, freedom, etc. etc. I have just dropped into the very place I have been seeking, but in everything it excels all my dreams. There is health in every breath of air......the scenery is the most glorious I have ever seen and is above us, around us, and up to the very door.....this is perfection, and all the requisites for health are present, including plenty of horses and grass to ride on. It is not easy to sit down to write after ten hours of hard riding......."
(I should say NOT!!!)
The Rocky Mountain National Park did not, of course, exist in 1873. National Park status was designated in 1915. The area now covers 415 square miles of natural beauty, including a paved road called Trail Ridge which ascends to 12, 183 feet above sea level - the highest continuous highway in North America - 46 miles long. We followed Trail Ridge one afternoon, to almost the highest point.One of the regular afternoon storms was brewing up ahead, so we decided to re-trace our route rather than travel on into the storm - I guess that Isabella Bird would not have approved our somewhat limp behaviour ! Her courage is obvious throughout her book, in spite of her protestations, after climbing Longs Peak with a wild mountain man known as "Mountain Jim "
".....had I known that the ascent was a real mountaineering feat I should not have felt the slightest ambition to perform it. As it is, I am only humiliated by my success, for "Jim" dragged me up, like a bale of goods, by sheer force of muscle".
As her letters proceed, it becomes quite obvious (to an other woman, at least) that she had developed an affection for Mountain Jim, verging on an almost surreal love affair. Her description of him on their first encounter:
"....a broad thickset man about the middle height with an old cap on his head and wearing a grey hunting suit much the worse for wear (almost falling to pieces in fact), a digger's scarf knotted around his waist, a knife in his belt, and a "bosom friend", a revolver sticking out of the breast pocket of his coat; his feet, which were very small, were bare, except for some dilapidated moccasins made of horse hide. The marvel was how his clothing hung together, and on him. The scarf around his waist must have had something to do with it. His face was remarkable.
He is a man of around fortyfive, and must have been strikingly handsome. He has large grey-blue eyes, deeply set, with well-marked eyebrows, a handsome aquiline nose and a very handsome mouth. His face was smooth shaven except for a dense mustache and imperial. Tawny hair in thin uncared- for curls, fell from under his hunter's cap and over his collar. One eye was entirely gone, and the loss made the one side of his face repulsive, while the other might have been modelled in marble. "Desperado" was written in large letters all over him. I almost repented of having sought his acquaintance."
(It turned out that "Jim" lost his eye in a recent encounter with a grizzly bear. He, also, was English by birth!)
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