Have you ever just been thinking about those huge piles of rocks cutting through the country and think, in your best stoner voice, “Mountains, man. Mountains.” I tell you what, mountains are absolute wonders when you think about it. Here are these massive, miles high protrusions of Earth’s crust. They have the power to completely change weather patterns, inhibit travel, and can contain extreme riches. I can’t imagine how explorers, navigating across new territory could even fathom crossing ranges that span horizon to horizon. I am nowhere close to having the cojones of those pathfinders, but if I had been in their shoes and came across the Rocky Mountains, my first thought would have been, without hesitation, “Well, I guess this trip is over. Time to make the three-month journey back home.” Not only have people been able to cross such mountainous behemoths on foot, but we now have roads and tunnels carving through the their crevasses. What a time to be alive!

Above everything else, however, mountains are beautiful. They afford views and sights you can only witness from the top of the world. I’ll never scale Everest or its brethren, but I’ve viewed Earth from high several times. There is little else that can compare to the visual majesty of mountains stretching for miles in every direction, peaceful peaks watching over the chaos of life occurring thousands of feet below. If you get the opportunity to scale one of the Rockies’ fourteeners, I promise it will be a memorable experience. In the meantime, here’s a sample of what you can encounter at a fraction of that altitude, courtesy of Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.