Elephant Rock
With Rampart Range and Pike National Forest in the background, Elephant Rock steps out from the red sandstone, scrub oak, and conifer forests of the Palmer Divide.
The rock stands, as it has for uncounted time, looking far off, down the valley towards the Arkansas River. Forever fixated on some distant point; seemingly unaware of time passing around it.
Sketched and photographed by many since the early 1800s, Elephant Rock is where Jeremiah Mouse lived, according to local storyteller and author Grace Best. July 11, 1820, the artist with Explorer Col Stephen Long’s party sketched the formation, naming it Castle Rock [Samuel Seymour]. Arched Rock and Phoebe Rock [1887] were names through time, before Elephant Rock [1894] as it stands in recent times. 2010
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