Big Thompson Canyon
The Walls of Big Thompson Canyon
Changed our Laughter to Awe
Photos from the Alexander Mountain Fire Facebook Page and by Darlene Bushue
I was fifteen years old the first time I traveled Highway 34 up the Big Thompson Canyon. It was July 1970, and I was in the back of a long station wagon extended like a limousine to hold fifteen passengers. We were headed from Nebraska for camp at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park. Silly, creative high school sophomores, we nicknamed ourselves the “Weenie Wagoneers.”
Back then, the Dam Store was a hilarious name. Damn was not a word used out loud by teenagers, so the double entendre ​created adolescent laughter. As we passed the Dam Store, quickly, the walls of the Big Thompson Canyon changed our laughter to awe.
I looked up seeing the lines of rocks going toward the sky. The unique angles made for a dynamic image in the mind of an awe struck teenager. I remember watching transfixed at the ledges, angles, and colors. It was so far removed from anything I had seen driving Highway 34 along the Platte River in the prairie of Nebraska.
I remember several years later seeing a photograph of five big horn rams pressed together on a small ledge high up on the cliff in the narrows of Big Thompson Canyon. How they got there and where they were going, I had no idea, but I was inspired by their agility to be pressed together on the towering cliff. I envisioned that someday I might take such a picture.
The Weenie Wagoneers worked our way up the canyon to the Colorado Cherry Company where we tumbled out of the station wagon to test the black bing and tart red cherry juices. I remember thinking it tasted different than anything I’d ever tasted, wondering if that might taste like the sloe gin that was still a mystery to me. I bought a bottle to go.
Along the way cabins lined the sides of the canyon. There were log cabins like the pioneers built, castles that seemed perfectly out of place, and retreats up on the hillside. As dreams floated through my mind, I thought maybe…Maybe someday…
When we reached Drake, I looked for the town but only saw a building. Smiling, it seemed like a small, mountain town with one spot that everyone knew and homes scattered along Highway 34 and up the side roads hidden in the hills.
As we wound up the road, the river rushed the opposite way. A little mountain river that seemed picturesque, almost quaint, like the Big Thompson should actually be the Little Thompson River.
I was not prepared for the Spectacular View Before Me
When we emerged from the canyon, I was not prepared for the spectacular view before me. The road led to Estes Park with a panoramic view of spectacular mountains rising up behind. Like a wall with a mystery beyond, the mountains were snow capped and towering over this little mountain village.
That mountain rage, I learned later, was the continental divide, a unique separation of water’s power to flow east or west, to one ocean or the other. A couple of years later, a friend would drive me up there, over Trail Ridge Road to 12,183 ft. with spectacular and terrifying views.
Now, fifty years later, I take others up Trail Ridge Road on RMNPhotographer Tours. As I drive, I watch their eyes absorbing the beauty surrounding them. I hear their nervous laughter, and share in the “awe” as they point to distant lakes and the tundra where elk lazily feed.
This month, as fires have ravaged the canyon, I also know of the destruction that can come with the power of nature. The Alexander Mountain and Stone Canyon Fires have devastated so many. Thinking back to the first Big Thompson Canyon disaster I remember 48 years ago, six years after the Weenie Wagoneers ventured up the canyon.
On July 31, 1976, a stalled thunderstorm produced rainfall totals of 12–14 inches near Estes Park, including 7.5 inches of rain falling in one hour. The rain rushed down the rock walls into the canyon causing a destructive flash flood down the Big Thompson River. When all was done, 144 were dead and roads had been swept away, homes demolished, and people’s sense of mountain tranquility challenged.
As a twenty-one year old living in Nebraska, when I heard of the Big Thompson Flood, I remember the tears. I knew I dreamed of one day living at the top of the Big Thompson Canyon in this utopian place called Estes Park. Following such destruction, I wondered if it would ever be the same.
But the canyon, town, and surrounding communities came back strong. The hearty and capable people rebuilt after the 1976 flood, 1982 Lawn Lake Flood, 2013 flood, and the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome Fires of 2020.
Today, living in Estes Park, I know those who live around us will recover from the Alexander Mountain and Stone Canyon Fires. The skies will return to a breath-taking blue, our animal friends will find their homes as the vegetation regrows, and travel will return from the prairie up the Big Thompson Canyon.
I know when the Big Thompson Canyon crests into Estes Park, we will all be struck with the wonderview.
