Mountain Boyhood

Estes Park was hardly more than a post office in 1899, when young Joe Mills first saw Colorado's Front Range. A would-be Robinson Crusoe, Joe scaled peaks, watched wild animals, hunted and trapped, and generally roughed it in the region that would become Rocky Mountain National Park in 1915.A Mountain Boyhood, the true story of his adventures there, is as rich in human as in natural history. Joe meets a colorful bunch of early settlers, living for a while with a circuit-riding parson who operates a ranch. He learns campcraft and nature lore, crosses Flattop Mountain on snowshoes in midwinter to socialize, and builds a log cabin near Longs Peak (the fireplace still stands). Joe Mills arrived far enough ahead of the sportsmen and tourists to serve them later as a seasoned guide, and, along with his brother, Enos Mills, the naturalist and writer, he was instrumental in establishing the area as a playground for the nation.Mills, Joe is the author of 'Mountain Boyhood' with ISBN 9780803231269 and ISBN 0803231261.