Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains enter the story as a horizon-spanning landscape in Colorado, first glimpsed during Dan Torrance and Billy Freeman’s westward drive and later associated with Dan’s approach to Boulder. Their growing presence gives the journey a visible destination while prompting Dan to face the years he spent avoiding them.

Setting and Approach

Dan and Billy start early, at four in the morning. Shortly after nine, they see a cloud stretching across the horizon; an hour later, it has resolved into a mountain range. They stop in Martenville, Colorado, where Dan enters a children’s clothing store while Billy goes to a drugstore. The mountains frame the route before the travelers reach the Denver area, making the landscape a steady presence in the journey rather than a destination reached all at once.

By noon, Dan and Billy are at the foot of the Flatirons, with the Rockies drawing closer as they watch. They leave the freeway and drive into Boulder, where the approach slows into a pause: Billy is hungry, but Dan declines food and remains curious about the place. The mountains mark the western landscape he has long kept at a distance.

A Shared View

As the travelers near Denver, Dan makes contact with Abra through the wheel they both know. He closes his eyes and sees the slope of the Stones’ back lawn beside the Saco River; Abra, in Anniston, closes her eyes and opens them to a view of the Rockies. The exchange links the mountains to the story’s psychic connection across distance: Dan’s westward journey and Abra’s experience of the landscape meet in a shared moment of sight.

Personal and Narrative Significance

Watching the Rockies draw nearer brings back to Dan the years he spent wandering while avoiding them. The mountains prompt a further recollection: a poem about running for years only to end up facing oneself in a hotel room. The landscape therefore carries more than geographic weight. Its approach turns the westward drive into a movement toward self-confrontation, while the scene’s contrast between Dan’s long avoidance and the mountains’ growing nearness gives the journey a quiet sense of reckoning.