The Most Scenic & Scary Road in the U.S. | History Traveler Episode 32

okay so usually we are going to historic destinations like museums and historic landmarks and things like that today we're doing something a little bit different we are going to a historic route called the old Fall River Road now this is in Rocky Mountain National Park and originally this was a route that was followed by the Arapaho as they crossed over the mountain paths in 1920 see I guess there would be about five years after Rocky Mountain National Park was founded they built the very first auto route into the mountains I think it was first constructed by some convicts from the Colorado State Penitentiary so anyway first it was traveled on foot then on horse then with Model T's now we're going to do it in a minivan [Music] [Music] okay so whenever this road was originally constructed it was a two-way Road which I cannot even imagine right now because it's rather horrifying as it is as a one-lane road much less if I had to maneuver around to make room for somebody coming down the Arapahoe called this the dog trail which is is kind of cool I guess they would use dogs to pull sleds through the snow but anyway we are still ascending [Music] okay so these things are called gabions maybe they were installed because there was a problem with erosion and they almost lost this road but public support ended up keeping the road open [Music] okay that's a long way down all the smokes if this is something oh if you could only see what I see on this side see what you can see on the side okay so we are moving from the sub-alpine to the alpine levels pretty scenic some psychological things going on with this road though for one there are no guardrails at all and they couldn't have called this the old road or the old river road they have - oh my gosh they have to call it the old Fall River Road emphasis on the word fall but it is pretty and the warmer temperatures down low got some elk up top here and the Alpine region some pretty good Bulls on there too [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right so that was the old Fall River Road pretty nice drive probably my favorite so far it's a little bit sketchy in a few places especially with no guardrails and everything but overall really cool Drive I'm a big fan of the era of the 1920s so to kind of come up that road and think about you know being in an old model T and being in the park during that era was was pretty cool right now we're gonna go into the visitor center and see if they have any additional information on the history of this area okay so now I'm inside the Visitor Center on the top of the trail and it's a little display here talking about the Native Americans who used this route that we just came up and the one that we're getting ready to go down so these are some moccasins that were either you or Shoshone the the two tribes were pretty close together so it's it's kind of difficult to tell which is which along with this bead bag here's something that's kind of interesting though this metal striker looks like some primitive brass knuckles but it's actually something that would be worn over the knuckles and then strike against ports or granite to create sparks so the French would have brought these over and used them for trade pretty cool okay now this is really interesting the Native Americans that were traveling on foot early on would follow elk and other migrating herds up here into the high regions and they would construct these little funnels out of stone and then have game drives and then at the end of the funnel would position people with weapons to kill the animals very interesting then here's some examples of that right there so that's one way that we know that Native Americans used this area as a trail because here's a few other interesting Native American tools so this is a flusher that would be used to scrape fat and flesh from the inside of animal skin and then an axe says here that they would use a mix of sand and water to sharpen the granite blades and to form their handle grooves that would take some work [Music] all right so that was kind of interesting learned that at 11,000 796 feet the visitor center here is the highest and elevation of any other Visitor Center in the National Park System I am now going up something called the Nexus the Alpine Ridge Trail but the nickname is humpers hill this is going to take me up to the top of this point and kind of get a look at a little bit of this scenery from up here at what seems like the top of the world okay so getting a little closer to the top there seems to be a little bit thin up here whoo it'll be worth it Oh [Music] and here's the view at the top my goodness [Music] certainly get a sense of the bigness and the creativity of God from up here amazing [Music] [Applause] I'll tell you what there there just aren't words to describe what this is like just simply amazing so I think we're going to hop back in the van and head back down a different historic route on Trail Ridge Road okay so we are on the eastern portion of the trail ridge road this road is actually listed on the National Registry of Historic Places it was started in 1929 to accommodate I guess more vehicle traffic that that was going through Rocky Mountain National Park and was also one of the the old trails that was used by different Native American groups I'll tell you what impresses me most driving this it's thinking about the men who built this road just the idea of getting heavy equipment up here and carving this out is really quite amazing because I mean just driving it alone I want why is a little bit of a white-knuckle experience in places but man it definitely is scenic okay so this is an area on the eastern side of the trail ridge road called the lava cliffs and this was the site of a volcanic explosion at one time pretty cool very neat formation okay a little windy but I am so completely pumped right now because we're up here on Trail Ridge Road and I really really wanted to see some bighorn sheep and they just happen to be up here Olivia is the one who spotted them alright so that was the Historic Trail Ridge Road first traveled by three stories Native Americans on foot and later by rapaho Shoshone you on horseback and travel by Model T so it's pretty cool to kind of gone along that that historic route right here in Rocky Mountain National Park very cool place I don't like that I can't see what's over the edge oh maybe because that's there's nothing over the edge except your final moments [Music]

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 238,382

Rating: 4.878788 out of 5

Keywords: history, history underground, history traveler, travel, rocky mountains, rocky mountain national park, dangerous, dangerous roads, scary roads, bighorn sheep, elk, national parks, jd huitt, native americans, arapaho, colorado, estes park

Id: bFVNbo7bVbc

Length: 12min 52sec (772 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 06 2020