Enos Mills

 Our son Jim and Mona and I spent a day on a return trip to Rocky Mountain National Park.  It was to be especially a trip for Jim to collect new photos of the Rockies for his collection.  It turned out to be a day for all of us to get some of the best wildlife shots we've ever had the privilege to capture.

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Rocky Mountain National Park. Of all the mountain parks in the United States, including Gran Teton, Yellowstone, Glacier, Yosemite and on perhaps none exemplifies both the American West and the American Rockies quite like RMNP.  And the one person who is most responsible for this magnificent park and its careful open access to the public for generations to come is the quiet 19th century geographer, conservationist, and lover of all things natural, Enos Mills.

He was a contemporary and friend of John Muir and joined he and others well into the twentieth century in assisting in development of the National Park System, even though he and Muir differed on the way our parks should be managed.  Muir wanted the parks kept pristine, and available only to the serious pack in and pack out camper/hiker while Mills saw the need to allow, carefully, as many Americans as possible to get to the blessings God had given our nation in such abundance.

Several years ago I read his book:
I'd been to RMNP before, but I would never see it in the same way again.

In 1888 Enos homesteaded in this valley, very near today's eastern entrance to the park. He fell in love with the area immediately.

He hiked everywhere, including numerous trips up the 14,259 foot Long's Peak. One of which was with a good friend's young daughter.  He in a wool suit and she in a dress. Up and back in one day despite the storm that caught them near the top.

Today Enos is called the father of Rocky Mountain National Park. I believe he might be considered one of the several fathers and mothers of all of America's national parks and forests. Including the very newest, Pinnacles, in California. dedicated on January 10, 2013.





The next time you visit one of our many National Parks give a moment to thanking the tall, quiet hiker, Enos Mills, who homesteaded a Colorado Valley in 1888, and helped created a majestic kingdom of natural wonder nation wide.

 -Ken