Never Drive Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park After Noon

Trail Ridge Road crosses Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and reaches 12,183 feet, the highest continuous paved road in the United States. It does not touch a summit and drop back down. It stays above the treeline for eleven miles, with no trees, almost no buildings, and long stretches with no guardrail. That is what makes the afternoons dangerous. Storms build over the Continental Divide through the late morning and break in the early afternoon, and from the high point it takes twenty minutes or more to drive back down to shelter. On 11 July 2014, lightning killed 42-year-old Rebecca Teilhet near the Ute Crossing trailhead. The following afternoon it killed 52-year-old Gregory Cardwell at the Rainbow Curve Overlook, less than two miles away. The National Weather Service later published a formal meteorological analysis of both deaths. This is the story of why a road was built across the most exposed high ground in Colorado, the unusual care taken to build it, and why the places it was designed to make you stop are the places you should not be standing after noon. Sources and further reading: National Park Service, Rocky Mountain National Park, history of Trail Ridge Road and spring plowing records National Park Service incident releases, July 2014 National Weather Service Pueblo, meteorological analysis of the Rocky Mountain National Park lightning fatalities of 11 and 12 July 2014 Historic American Engineering Record, Trail Ridge Road survey, 2000 Living New Deal, Trail Ridge Road completion records If you have driven Trail Ridge Road, tell me in the comments what it was actually like up there. The people who drive it regularly know things about that road that no report records.