Wow Photo Wednesday

This beautiful shot of Colorado scenery at the east inlet of Grand Lake inspires a quiet "wow" and reminds us of the simple and awe inspiring beauty of our state. The photo was taken by Louis Charles McClure, one of our Acclaimed Western Photographers, who is described in detail in this Blog Entry.

Grand Lake, Colorado's deepest natural lake, is located in the headwaters of the Colorado River, in Grand County, in the upper center of the state, surrounded on three sides by Rocky Mountain National Park. As part of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project (a massive water diversion project of the Bureau of Land Management, started in 1938), Grand Lake forms a continuous body of water with the man-made reservoir Shadow Mountain Lake, which under natural conditions then flows into another man-made reservoir, Lake Granby.

The lake is 1.5 miles by 1 mile in size, and 265 feet deep at the deepest. It's four miles of shoreline are dotted with residences, boat docks, and the town of Grand Lake. At 8,367 feet in altitude, the entire area is a refreshing alpine relief from Denver's summer heat, and is one of Colorado's earliest summer retreats. Visit the Grand Lake website, and plan your next weekend getaway around this beautiful jewel of Rocky Mountain scenery.

"Wow Photo Wednesday" celebrates photographs in the Denver Public Library's Digital Collections that have "The Wow Factor" and that highlight the myriad delightful nuggets in our database.