Having already explained my love of heights in a recent journal entry I was a little lost on what to say for this particular post. I was struggling to find words grand enough to explain the beauty and vastness of Rocky Mountain National Park. Even as we followed the twisting road through the mountain pass, our car was full of sound but the words weren’t ours. Music poured out of the speakers but our attention was focused on what was happening outside the vehicle. So instead of fumbling through the rest of this post, I thought I could share the words of some people who have described it better than I ever could have.

The pictures you see below were my best attempt to capture the parts of Rocky Mountain National Park we got to explore during our all too brief visit. The words you read, however, are some of my favorite sayings and quotes involving mountains. I’m hoping that the combination of the two might inspire and delight you and hopefully offer a reminder of just how incredible this world is.

 “The Rocky Mountains realize – nay, exceed – the dream of my childhood. It is magnificent, and the air is life-giving.” – Isabella Bird

“The mountains are calling and I must go.” – John Muir

 “Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.” ― David McCullough Jr.

“You are not in the mountains. The mountains are in you.”  -John Muir

“If adventure has a final and all-embracing motive, it is surely this: we go out because it is our nature to go out, to climb mountains, and to paddle rivers, to fly to the planets and plunge into the depths of the oceans… When man ceases to do these things, he is no longer man.” – Wilfrid Noyce

“Although I deeply love oceans, deserts, and other wild landscapes, it is only mountains that beckon me with that sort of painful magnetic pull to walk deeper and deeper into their beauty.” – Victoria Erikson

And finally: “I go to seek a great perhaps” – John Green