Middle Park (elev. 8,000 ft or 2,400 m) is a high basin in the Rocky Mountains of north-central Colorado in the United States. It is located in Grand County, on the southwest slope of Rocky Mountain National Park, approximately 50 miles (80 km) west of (and across the continental divide from) Boulder.
YouTube Encyclopedic
-
1/3Views:1 031 9071 4753 993 513
-
How Was the Grand Canyon Formed?
-
Canyoneering on the Colorado Plateau - Leave No Trace
-
The Canal that Accidentally Grew a Forest in the Arizona Desert
Transcription
[MUSIC] Pretty awesome, isn’t it? The Grand Canyon is one of the most spectacular natural wonders on Earth, 277 miles long, 18 miles wide at its widest, and more than a mile deep into the Earth’s crust… and unlike the Great Wall of China, you can actually see it from space. All the water in all of Earth’s rivers would only fill it halfway. It almost defies belief. The Colorado river, the river that made this canyon, it’s only about 100 meters wide, that's not very big as rivers go. The Mississippi, the Amazon are far, far bigger, and they've never made anything like this. So how did it happen? No one was around to see it form, but the Grand Canyon’s story is written in those beautiful rock layers. Geologists are kind of like time traveling detectives, they look for fingerprints here and there, retrace the footsteps to retell Earth’s story, as best we can anyway. Native Americans in this area call the canyon “Kaibab”, meaning “mountain lying down” or “upside-down mountain”. They didn’t know how right they were… because down there at the bottom of the canyon, the oldest rocks are mountains. The oldest rocks at the bottom of the canyon are named after the Hindu god Vishnu. About 1.8 billion years ago, the area that’s now the Grand Canyon was covered in mountains taller than the Himalayas. But over hundreds of millions of years, erosion wore them down into hills just tens of meters tall. From this point on, the evolution of the Grand Canyon doesn’t happen in a dry desert like you see today, it happens underwater. Ancient oceans filled this area, from a billion years ago to as recently as 80 million years ago. Water would rise, and fall, and rise and fall again, depositing sand, and mud, and even ancient seashells and compressing them into rock, piling layer upon layer, turning Earth’s crust into a colorful layer cake, just waiting to be cut. You might notice we’re not at sea level right now. 70 or 80 million years ago, this whole area took a tectonic elevator ride straight up, pushing those ancient layers into a high plateau. But there was still no river, and no canyon. Northeast of here, that same uplift created the Rocky Mountains, and their snow-covered peaks. Melting snow began to flow and pool up in this area. Small rivers joined together to make larger ones, some pooled up into lakes, some even changed direction, and about 5 or 6 million years ago, the Colorado River was born. That’s not that old in geological time, but this river is special. Even though it isn’t that big,it drops 10 feet for every mile it travels, carrying half a million tons of silt and sand and rocks downstream every day. It’s like liquid sandpaper. It cut the plateau backwards, the same way a waterfall wears away at a cliff, cutting a mile-deep scar like a hot knife through butter. "Excuse me, we're trying to find the Grand Canyon" Um, here's an idea! So that’s how it got deep, but how did the canyon get so wide? Well, gravity took over, rain and ice chipping away at the canyon walls, and as it fell, it was carried downstream. Fossils and rocks from this area have even been found downstream almost as far as the Gulf of California. And that’s pretty much how we got the canyon of today. If you want to turn a mountain upside down, all you need is time. This canyon is still changing, it's getting deeper and wider, and as we continue to study it, the story of this canyon will change too. There’s stories like this locked in Earth’s crust all over the planet, hidden from view, but that little river has opened this one to us. Stay curious.
Description
The basin surrounds the headwaters of the Colorado River on the west side of the Front Range. It extends southwestward from the source of the Colorado at Grand Lake, downstream past Granby (the largest community), Hot Sulphur Springs, Parshall and Kremmling. It terminates on the western end roughly where the Colorado passes Gore Canyon at the southern end of the Gore Range. The valley also extends into the lower valleys of side tributaries on the upper Colorado such as the Fraser River, Williams Fork, and Willow Creek. The valley of the Fraser contains the towns of Fraser and Winter Park. The lower Blue River downstream of Dillon Reservoir is often included as part of Middle Park.
The valley receives its name from being the middle (and smallest) of the three large mountain valleys (i.e., parks) in Colorado on the western side of the Front Range. The other two are North Park and South Park. U.S. Highway 34 traverses the valley from the northeast to the southwest, and connects to U.S. Highway 40 at Granby.
The valley is surrounded on the north, east, and south by mountains that form the continental divide, and thus it forms a slight pocket eastward in the drainage basin of the Pacific Ocean in this part of the Rockies. North Park, to the north, is drained by the North Platte River and separated from the valley by relatively low passes, Muddy Pass and Willow Creek Pass. The passes on the east (Milner Pass) and south (Berthoud Pass), connect to the basin of the South Platte River. They are both in the Front Range proper and thus are higher and more likely to be snow-covered. Milner Pass is near the high point on Trail Ridge Road (U.S. Highway 34 in Rocky Mountain National Park) and is open only during summer months, allowing a seasonal connection by road between Estes Park and Grand Lake. Berthoud Pass, at the headwaters of the Fraser south of Winter Park, connects the valley via U.S. Highway 40 to Interstate 70 in Clear Creek Canyon. This latter route is the most direct route between the valley and Denver.
The valley contains several reservoirs on the Colorado and its tributaries, including Lake Granby, which inundates a large portion of the northeastern part of the valley. Unlike North Park and South Park, which are wide flat basins at the headwaters of the North and South Platte respectively, Middle Park is a narrower basin, allowing for less agricultural use as pasturelands. The main industry in the valley is tourism, including alpine skiing at Winter Park Ski Resort. Much traffic between Denver and the destination resort of Steamboat Springs passes through the valley as well, allowing for secondary tourism industries to proliferate in the smaller towns. The smaller demand for water allows much of the water in the upper Colorado basin to be transported eastward across the continental divide to the Colorado Front Range as part of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project.
40°06′42″N 105°56′09″W / 40.11169°N 105.93587°W
In popular culture
The fictional town of Middle Park, CO from the animated series South Park is based on the basin. The town is first mentioned in the Season One episode Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride, and is additionally mentioned in Quest for Ratings. Trey Parker, one of the creators of the South Park series, grew up in Conifer, about 40 miles (65 km) east of Fairplay.
This page was last edited on 8 May 2024, at 16:48