Rocky Mountain National Park's Best Hikes
Lace up your boots and get ready to explore the huge wilderness of Rocky Mountain National Park, where the windswept tundra accommodates an ecosystem of hundreds of species of wildflowers, and the sculpted peaks silhouetted against the blue sky function a dramatic reminder of the last ice age. Traverse this great backbone of the Continental Divide and listen for bugling elk or spot fresh bear scat beneath your feet. Come celebrate the one centesimal anniversary of one in all America’s oldest nationwide parks within the time-honored tradition – backpack on, strolling sticks in hand and ski posters sense of marvel restored.
It’s an enormous place, so that can assist you discover your means, listed below are some of Rocky Mountain’s best hikes.
Bear Lake
Bear Lake is likely one of the park’s hottest locations for first-time visitors, and with good reason. From right here you’ll have a entrance-row vantage level of the dramatic glacial valleys and hulking granite summits that make Rocky Mountain such a singular landscape. With ten lakes in the space and superb vistas, it's best to definitely anticipate large crowds.
Hikes here range from simple jaunts round Bear Lake (0.5 miles) or to Alberta Falls (1.6 miles) to more challenging excursions that follow the glacial valleys as much as their origins. Mills Lake (5.6 miles) is an efficient selection, as is the Loch (6.2 miles), which will be prolonged to the exquisite Lake of Glass and Sky Pond (9.8 miles), both of which are as serene as their names suggest. And while Flattop Mountain (12,324ft, 8.eight miles) is probably not the park’s greatest summit, there’s no denying its magnetic pull from down below. Use the park shuttles to get to the trailhead.
Bear Lake to Fern Lake
This dayhike is a ranger favourite and recognized for its numerous scenery. On this hike you'll climb as much as the treeline and an alpine lake before dropping back down through fields of scree and into a forested valley. Right here you’ll pass more lakes, waterfalls, aspen groves and elk-inhabited meadows.
Thanks to the park shuttle system, this is a one-manner trip that requires no backtracking – and what’s more, it’s principally downhill. You can’t miss Lake Helene, which sits serenely beneath the imposing tough-cut cliffs of Notchtop and Flattop mountains. To do this hike, park at Fern Lake Trailhead (the endpoint), then take the shuttle to Bear Lake Trailhead. Shorten the journey by merely going to Lake Helene and back (5.eight miles).
Longs Peak & Chasm Lake
Iconic in each method, Longs Peak is the top of RMNP and certainly one of Colorado’s basic climbs. The tallest peak within the park (14,259ft), its exhilarating and exhausting Keyhole Route is on many guests’ to-do list. The highest of this route is the crux, consisting of narrow traverses, vertiginous cliff faces and coronary heart-pounding clambering up polished slabs of rock. Most people start the climb by 3am in order to reach the summit earlier than noon.
The nice news is that you just don’t have to achieve the summit or flip your legs to jelly. Chasm Lake, located on the foot of the Diamond – Longs’ legendary east face the place technical climbers rope up to scale the 1000ft wall – is routinely rated as one of many park’s best hikes. Chasm options all the spectacular scenery of the height without the risk and arduous ascent. Nevertheless, at 8.4 miles spherical trip, you’ll nonetheless should be in superb shape.
Gem Lake
On the northeastern finish of the park is Lumpy Ridge, composed of 1.8-billion-year-old granite formations that were sculpted by the weather quite than by glaciers. This markedly totally different fashion of erosion has resulted in an array of whimsically formed boulders, balancing rocks and colossal domes. The path to Gem Lake is a good way to explore the world, with superb vistas back to the Continental Divide all the best way up to the bijou-like lake.
It’s an enormous place, so that can assist you discover your means, listed below are some of Rocky Mountain’s best hikes.
Bear Lake
Bear Lake is likely one of the park’s hottest locations for first-time visitors, and with good reason. From right here you’ll have a entrance-row vantage level of the dramatic glacial valleys and hulking granite summits that make Rocky Mountain such a singular landscape. With ten lakes in the space and superb vistas, it's best to definitely anticipate large crowds.
Hikes here range from simple jaunts round Bear Lake (0.5 miles) or to Alberta Falls (1.6 miles) to more challenging excursions that follow the glacial valleys as much as their origins. Mills Lake (5.6 miles) is an efficient selection, as is the Loch (6.2 miles), which will be prolonged to the exquisite Lake of Glass and Sky Pond (9.8 miles), both of which are as serene as their names suggest. And while Flattop Mountain (12,324ft, 8.eight miles) is probably not the park’s greatest summit, there’s no denying its magnetic pull from down below. Use the park shuttles to get to the trailhead.
Bear Lake to Fern Lake
This dayhike is a ranger favourite and recognized for its numerous scenery. On this hike you'll climb as much as the treeline and an alpine lake before dropping back down through fields of scree and into a forested valley. Right here you’ll pass more lakes, waterfalls, aspen groves and elk-inhabited meadows.
Thanks to the park shuttle system, this is a one-manner trip that requires no backtracking – and what’s more, it’s principally downhill. You can’t miss Lake Helene, which sits serenely beneath the imposing tough-cut cliffs of Notchtop and Flattop mountains. To do this hike, park at Fern Lake Trailhead (the endpoint), then take the shuttle to Bear Lake Trailhead. Shorten the journey by merely going to Lake Helene and back (5.eight miles).
Longs Peak & Chasm Lake
Iconic in each method, Longs Peak is the top of RMNP and certainly one of Colorado’s basic climbs. The tallest peak within the park (14,259ft), its exhilarating and exhausting Keyhole Route is on many guests’ to-do list. The highest of this route is the crux, consisting of narrow traverses, vertiginous cliff faces and coronary heart-pounding clambering up polished slabs of rock. Most people start the climb by 3am in order to reach the summit earlier than noon.
The nice news is that you just don’t have to achieve the summit or flip your legs to jelly. Chasm Lake, located on the foot of the Diamond – Longs’ legendary east face the place technical climbers rope up to scale the 1000ft wall – is routinely rated as one of many park’s best hikes. Chasm options all the spectacular scenery of the height without the risk and arduous ascent. Nevertheless, at 8.4 miles spherical trip, you’ll nonetheless should be in superb shape.
Gem Lake
On the northeastern finish of the park is Lumpy Ridge, composed of 1.8-billion-year-old granite formations that were sculpted by the weather quite than by glaciers. This markedly totally different fashion of erosion has resulted in an array of whimsically formed boulders, balancing rocks and colossal domes. The path to Gem Lake is a good way to explore the world, with superb vistas back to the Continental Divide all the best way up to the bijou-like lake.