Photos by Delaney Wade
June 10, 2006

A few weeks short of 30 years ago a massive flood rolled through this location. On July 31st 1976 a very violent thunder storm stalled over the Rocky Mountain's at Estes Park, Colorado, and the Loveland, Colorado area. The storm caused a 30' wall of water to come screaming down a busy mountain canyon. This flood killed over a hundred and forty people (140+), six of which were never found. It shut down the road to Estes Park from Loveland for the complete summer. I remember it well as I lived in Masonville, Colorado just a few miles north of this location, (no were near the flood) We had been at Cheyenne Frontier days and we were headed home. There were two ways to get to Masonville, one through Ft Collins, going around Horsetooth reservoir and along twisting roads, or through Loveland, right by the Big Thompson River. We took the Ft Collins route home that night through massive rain and falling rocks on the road. Had we taken the Loveland route we would have been hit or very possibly hit by the flood as our paths happened at the time of the flood. We awoke the next morning to phone calls from family members asking if we were all right. Mom was a bit confused by it all, as we had no idea about the flood as the rain storm and flood had taken out all electricity in our area. I guess fate was on our side that night. This, and many other huge boulders were what was left.

Taken with a Panasonic DMC-FZ30 digital camera Zoomed in at 2X portrait macro enabled in Program AE mode.