1938-1942 Student Hiking Film Footage of Rocky Mountain Glaciers

Good Days on the Trail, 1938-1942 is a silent film documenting student hiking trips conducted by the University of Colorado at Boulder. It contains rare historical footage of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, including Arapaho Glacier and Fair Glacier, filmed during summers from 1938 to 1942. The dataset is hosted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and appears on multiple platforms.

Use Cases

• Analyzing historical glacier size and features in the Rocky Mountains from visual footage.
• Studying early 20th-century student outdoor education and hiking practices.
• Documenting landscape changes in Rocky Mountain National Park, Indian Peaks Wilderness, and Roosevelt National Forest.
• Providing visual reference material for historical geography of Colorado.

Strengths

• Contains rare historical visual documentation of Rocky Mountain glaciers from 1938-1942.
• Film covers a specific five-year time period across multiple summers.
• Cross-platform presence on datagov and nasa_earthdata indicates established curation.

Limitations

• Specific file size, row count, and column details are unavailable from all sources.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date (2026-03-13 vs. 1942-12-31).
• License is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without further detail.

Provenance

Source

University of Colorado at Boulder

Collection Method

Filmed documentation of student hiking trips.

Time Range

1938-1942

Freshness

2026-03-13

Geography

Rocky Mountains, Colorado, USA, including Rocky Mountain National Park, Indian Peaks Wilderness, and Roosevelt National Forest.