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spots for its path. And time has also left it in a backdrop, along part of the way, that meanders through a meadow here and there, framed in ponderosa pine, cottonwoods and the famed Aspen which turn golden in Colorado's crisp' autumn air. Along its path over a period of time. innumerable cabins, vacation homes and camping spots sprang up. The Flood changed all that. More than 4,000 vacationers and permanent residents of the Canyon paid little more than passing interest late Saturday afternoon July 31, when a few light sprinkles first fell in the area. As the sun set in splendor over the Continental Divide of the Rockies, few showed much concern over the thunderheads building across the backbone of the magnificent mountains. As dusk neared, the boiling storm- more typical of tornado clouds which beset tl.e plains states to the east- soared 62,000 feet-12 miles-into the sky. Moist air from the Gulf of Mexico had been channeled into the Rockies behind a mild cold front. At the time it all started, although weather conditions were unstable, there was little cause for alarm, even in the National Weather Service office in Denver. But as the dark clouds moved into the Big Thompson area ahead of the setting sun, rain started coming down in torrents. At 7:35 p.m., the Weather Bureau issued a severe thunderstorm warning. For the next four hours, the rains fell and continued to fall. .with measurements of from 10 to 14 inches. . pouring more water than the ground could absorb or handle. Before midnight, the rainfall in parts of the area equalled that usually scheduled for an entire year! At 9 p.m., the Weather Bureau issued another warning, this one urgently 12 lEFT: The flood cut a 1 DO-yard gash out of Highway 36. ABOVE: The largest village on the northern fork of the Big Thompson - Glen Haven - was inundated by the flood. Here. a resident Is shown digging through debris for once-precious belongings.