#OPEN ROADS TO ESTES PARK HOW TO#

#OPEN ROADS TO ESTES PARK HOW TO#

How to Get There Trail Ridge Road (Chris LaBasco/iStock) If parking lots are full, don’t fret the park has a good shuttle system that will take you to popular trailheads. If you have your heart set on seeing some of the park’s signature features, accept that crowds are part of the experience. If you want to minimize interaction with those crowds, get started as early as you can-essentially before dawn-and head to Grand Lake, on the western side roughly 80 percent of all visitors enter through Estes Park, on the eastern side. Parking lots in scenic areas like Bear Lake fill up before breakfast, and Trail Ridge Road is packed with minivans and RVs by 10 A.M. Rocky Mountain National Park is the third most visited park in the country, and it’s only getting more popular-visitation hit record numbers in 2019, pulling in nearly 4.7 million people. Bring extra layers, and always carry a rain shell in your pack. All of this to say: be prepared for any sort of weather in this park, regardless of how warm it is when the day begins. Midsummer snowstorms aren’t unheard of either. If you’re hiking above the tree line, keep your eye on the horizon for sketchy clouds forming, and always have an escape route in mind. The park offers real-time road updates on its website, so check the information regularly.Įxpect unpredictable weather. The temperature can vary by 20 to 30 degrees between high elevations and the lower valleys, and summer thunderstorms come on fast. The park can get snowstorms into June, and some years snow will linger into July, affecting which roads are open. Drink lots of water throughout the day, and eat regularly. If you’re coming from sea level, try to take it easy when you first arrive, and schedule tougher hikes later in your visit. It can be as mild as a light headache or as severe as vomiting and disorientation. What You Need to Know Before Visiting The view from atop Longs Peak (SeanXu/iStock)Īltitude sickness is real. There’s something personal to be found by anyone in this landscape, a standout even in a park system that only protects the most awesome swaths of land in the country. Eventually, we’d hold a memorial service for my wife’s grandfather on the edge of his favorite backcountry lake. They would earn their first Junior Ranger badges here. Later, after moving away from Colorado, my wife and I would geek out on showing the park to our kids during long family road trips.

I spent three years living in Denver, exploring the park as often as possible, sliding down its glaciers and wooing my soon-to-be wife in primitive campsites deep in the backcountry. And at 11,000 feet, the alpine ecosystem begins: trees give way to windswept tundra, craggy peaks, and cirque glaciers, and the crowds dissipate, leaving you with the “roof” of the park mostly to yourself. The subalpine environment, from 9,000 and 11,000 feet, is comprised of natural lakes, boulders, and evergreen forests, and the majority of trails meander through these breathtaking landscapes. The lower elevations, below 9,000 feet and referred to as the montane, are dominated by broad, grassy meadows filled with more than 350 miles of trails. The 265,807-acre park, located in northern Colorado, offers some of the best access to high-alpine terrain in the country, thanks to Trail Ridge Road-the highest paved highway in America-which tops out at a 12,183-foot peak, one of more than a hundred in the park taller than 11,000 feet.

In between are bighorn sheep, mountain lions, and black bears. Elk gather in herds on the east side, while moose patrol the other. That’s the thing about the park: awe-inspiring sights come easy here. But there it was, standing on the opposite side of the Colorado River, as tall as me and a thousand pounds heavier, with a massive rack. I had just started my run and was only about 200 yards from the car, so I wasn’t in a wildlife-encounter headspace. I wasn’t expecting to see the moose, which is a ridiculous thing to say considering I was running through an area known for attracting them: Kawuneeche Valley, on the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park. To check for safety protocols and potential closures, check individual websites before you go. As of press time, some trails, campsites, and businesses are closed due to Covid-19 precautions.

Open roads to estes park