The Front Range from "Behind", Colorado's Western Slope

Colorado is not actually entirely mountainous, as many would suspect it to be.  Well over a third of the state consists of the High Plains, and the great snow-capped peaks of common imagination actually take up very little ground in the mountain regions.  The most dramatic part of the Colorado Rockies, the Front Range, takes all of  about two hours to get through from east to west, at least on modern expressways.

After traversing the prairies and becoming accustomed to the forests of Subalpine Fir (Abies Lasiocarpa) and Engelmann Spruce (Picea Engelmannii), the rear of the Front Range is reached, and while still mountainous and on average over 7,000 feet above sea level, the land takes on a drier note.  Pines replace the firs, yuccas and sagebrush start popping up, and the peaks generally lose their snow in April or early May, rather than keeping it sometimes well into August.  This is not say that the land is any less lovely, or that one feels as if one has left mountain country, however.  Take this viewpoint, of the broad expanse of Gore Canyon, off of a very fun stretch of Colorado highway 1.

In places, there are taller, isolated peaks.

For those wondering, the lack of forest at high elevations is due to excessive logging and grazing that has taken place in the last century.  Still, little can dampen the grandeur of the dramatic walls and ridges that the Front Range itself makes up, towering over the relatively lower high country of the western slopes, especially when taken as a backdrop to one of the many lakes which lie on the western side of the range.  Shadow Mountain lake and Lake Granby are both dammed up reservoirs of the Colorado river (the two lakes pictured below), which provide water to the cities along the corridor from Denver to Cheyenne.  These views can be seen off of US-34, south of the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.

The water reaches the far side of the divide through tunnels that were drilled under thousands of feet of mountain.  There are, of course, natural lakes in the region as well, though they lie further off the beaten path.  Grand Lake, Colorado's deepest and largest natural lake, can almost be seen in the first photo behind the peninsula with the homes on it.  The range catches about 80% of the state's precipitation, and like the rest of the crest of the Rockies, it usually keeps eastern weather to the east and western weather to the west.  The eastern side is frequently starved for clouds, whereas the western side can conversely be under a full-blown storm of some sort.  Those pictures are very deceptive!