If you've ever driven along the Cherry Creek Dam Road, perhaps you've glanced southward into the State Park and noticed the long, straight road shown below:
That used to be state highway 83 (better known locally as Parker Road). If you're familiar with today's Parker Rd, you may find it hard to believe that this two-laner once served the same function (just east of this point, modern Parker Rd is three lanes each direction; has a flyover interchange with I-225; and, despite that, is still congested). But until the mid-20th century, there was no reservoir or state park here. Construction on the dam itself began in 1948 and was completed in 1950. So Parker Rd had to be rerouted around the maximum pool area of the reservoir. The map below illustrates this:
USGS, 1:100 series, 1981
Parker Rd is the red line running diagonally from top center to the bottom right corner. The "hump" in the road is the realignment necessitated by the construction of the dam (in other words, from about Dartmouth to just south of Quincy). The original alignment of the road is also evident on the map: you can see how originally it was pretty much a straight shot running along the east side of the floodplain. The road photographed above is shown at right center of the map, next to the red number "1". It's now maintained by the state park and used to access various recreational facilities.
From the spot where I took the photo above, if you look the opposite direction, you'll see the view shown below:
That's I-225 in the foreground; in the middleground you can see where Parker rejoins its original alignment (today the road curves off the right edge of the photo, where it has intersections with Peoria, I-225, Hampden, and Quincy). Below is a close-up:
At bottom, you can see a fenceline that reflects a property boundary based on Parker's historic alignment. Beyond that is a fairly-recently-built funeral home, the lot for which must've been replatted after Parker was changed. That building obscures the Dartmouth intersection; the next light is Bethany/Lansing. Beyond that is the Yale light, and the white office building sits on the east side of Havana.
Incidentally, the peaks in the background are in Rocky Mountain National Park, and are a good 60 miles distant as the crow flies. They're north of Longs Peak, so I'm assuming they're part of the Mummy Range.
Ahead just a little ways from there, Parker's alignment shifts slightly to the west, and so north of Yale there's a stretch where Longs Peak is dead-ahead... on a clear day it can be quite striking. The view below is just past Iliff, approaching Dayton...
...and the photo below is past Dayton, approaching Florida:
Longs is one of Colorado's more well-known 14-ers. (All photos taken in April 2004.)
Page created 27 April 2004; last updated 11 April 2006. |