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Search National Park Collection at L.L. Bean.com, and be an outsider with L.L. Bean. As the National Park idea began to inspire Americans far and wide, a major problem arose. How to provide safe access to these

often wild and dangerous places, especially as the automobile began to make cross-country travel easier and more affordable.

I'm Jason Epperson and today on America's national parks, two roads that taught the National

Park Service some of the major lessons that have been applied to park service some of the major lessons that have been applied to park design

over the past century.

In the great state of Colorado, Rocky Mountain National Park presides over the continental divide as one of the crowning jewels of the National Park system.

But as you could decipher from its very name,

access to the wilds of the Rockies was difficult. In 1920, park managers set out to

provide access to the high country via a trail, as was traditional.

But this trail would be designed to accommodate motor vehicles.

And it was named Ball River Road. Here's Abigail Trebue. The first road ever built over the Continental Divide quietly leads travelers from Horseshoe Park, a short distance west of the Fall River entrance through Rocky Mountain National Park's wilderness to Fall River Pass, 11,796 feet above sea level.

The journey to the Alpine world at the top of Old Fall River Road happens at a max speed limit of 15 miles per hour.

A clear indication that a journey up is not for the impatient.

The road itself is safe but narrow and curved, mostly gravel with no guardrails.

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