Betty Ford Alpine Gardens: The Highest Garden
Near Vail, Colorado
Tucked into Ford Park on the east side of town is a small wonder that most people driving past never notice. The Betty Ford Alpine Gardens is one of the highest elevation botanical gardens in the world, sitting at roughly eight thousand two hundred feet above sea level. That altitude is exactly the point.
Growing a garden up here means working with plants that can survive brutal cold, fierce sun, and a growing season squeezed into just a few short months. The gardens hold thousands of varieties of alpine and mountain plants gathered from high places all over the world, from the Rockies to the Himalaya. They were founded in nineteen eighty five and named a few years later in honor of former First Lady Betty Ford, a fitting tribute right beside the amphitheater named for her husband, the thirty eighth president.
Among the most striking features is a rock garden with a waterfall dropping some one hundred and twenty feet. The gardens are free to visit and open every single day of the year. In a valley famous for winter, this is a quiet celebration of the short, intense mountain summer.
