And the Cleanup Continues ...

The area has worked particularly hard to get things back to normal as much as possible since the flood.  It's hard to believe that it has been six months now - and yet to realize all that has been accomplished in those six months!

This week when Bill and I did our town trip for chores and groceries, we chose to come home a different route.  Heading out of Loveland up I-34 I spotted many new signs for the businesses in Estes Park.  This is one from a business that works closely with the Livery across the street from us; taking fishing/pack trips to our mountain lakes on horseback.

Then we headed up the Big Thompson canyon itself, amazed at the cleanup that has taken place.

A little town, Glen Haven, that sits just a few miles north of Estes Park on a little winding road, was nearly wiped out.  One of our sons and his family had done a lot of volunteer work there in the weeks after the flood and we had heard - and seen many of their pictures - of just how hard they had been hit.  Many of our guests had come that way this fall and we were hearing amazing stories of the road work and cleanup that has been done; although not completed by a long way.  We had avoided that trip, not wanting to see all the damage, but decided we needed to get caught up with that area.

We saw 'new fields' (didn't use to be there before) that had been scraped clean of debris.

Piles of reclaimed asphalt ready to be used for the new roadbed, or as fill dirt.

Crossed over a temporary bridge; no, the road did not use to go here.

....and got to see some places that have not been scraped clean yet.  This is just a small idea of what these mountain strong people have been dealing with, in-between bouts of snowy weather.  That's the river on the other side of the fence, that still needs to be dredged before spring runoffs come.  It's important!  Areas above this are currently sitting at 180+ percent of normal snowpack.  We love the snow but it does seem to come at times when the area is already stressed.  We feel for all of you in the north and upper midwest that keep getting hit with storms this year.

What a beautiful view to come over the top of Devil's Gulch road and catch this view of Long's Peak (center rt.) and Meeker Peak (center left) just before spotting Estes Park at their base.

After passing through Estes and heading south on SH 7, we came to St. Catherine's Chapel at Camp St. Malo.

Notice the dark dirt spot just below the trees on the left side of the picture.  Now take a closer look; that depression was the lake that the chapel sat above.

 This is what it looked like a week after the flood.  Pretty amazing!
Somehow, the road crews have taken all the trees and dirt and compacted it into a semblance of a smaller pond.  Last week we saw the mound of trees and dirt they were working on.  Neither of us could believe they created such a serene looking area from the mess they started with.

Everyone has worked super hard to make our area a pleasant place to visit again.  Tell you friends and neighbors to come check us out.  Check out this site:  http://www.supportestespark.com/  It's a great way to help out the area and make it easier to travel in the summer.
Bionic Cowgirl