Rocky Mountain National Park's Greatest Hikes
Lace up your boots and get ready to discover the vast wilderness of Rocky Mountain National Park, the place the windswept tundra contains 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 spine of the Continental Divide and listen for bugling elk or spot contemporary bear scat beneath your feet. Come celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of one in every of America’s oldest nationwide parks within the time-honored tradition – backpack on, strolling sticks in hand and sense of surprise restored.
It’s a giant place, so to help you discover your method, listed below are a few of Rocky Mountain’s finest hikes.
Bear Lake
Bear Lake is likely one of the park’s most popular destinations for first-time guests, 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 within the area and superb vistas, you must definitely count on massive crowds.
Hikes here range from easy jaunts around Bear Lake (0.5 miles) or to Alberta Falls (1.6 miles) to more challenging excursions that observe the glacial valleys as much as their origins. Mills Lake (5.6 miles) is an effective choice, as is the Loch (6.2 miles), which can be prolonged to the exquisite Lake of Glass and Sky Pond (9.eight miles), each of which are as serene as their names suggest. And while Flattop Mountain (12,324ft, 8.eight miles) is probably not the park’s best 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 favorite and identified for its diverse scenery. On this hike you may climb as much as the treeline and an alpine lake earlier than dropping back down by way of fields of scree and right 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-approach trip that requires no backtracking – and what’s more, it’s principally downhill. You possibly can’t miss Lake Helene, which sits serenely beneath the imposing rough-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 trip by merely going to Lake Helene and back (5.8 miles).
Longs Peak & Chasm Lake
Iconic in each approach, Longs Peak is the top of RMNP and considered one of colorado posters’s traditional climbs. The tallest peak in 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 heart-pounding clambering up polished slabs of rock. Most people start the climb by 3am with a purpose to reach the summit before noon.
The good news is that you don’t have to achieve the summit or flip your legs to jelly. Chasm Lake, positioned at the foot of the Diamond – Longs’ legendary east face where technical climbers rope up to scale the 1000ft wall – is routinely rated as one of the park’s finest hikes. Chasm options all the spectacular scenery of the peak without the risk and arduous ascent. However, at 8.4 miles spherical journey, you’ll nonetheless need to be in very good shape.
Gem Lake
At the northeastern end of the park is Lumpy Ridge, composed of 1.8-billion-year-old granite formations that had been sculpted by the elements reasonably than by glaciers. This markedly completely different type of erosion has resulted in an array of whimsically formed boulders, balancing rocks and colossal domes. The trail to Gem Lake is a good way to explore the area, with superb vistas back to the Continental Divide all the way in which up to the bijou-like lake.
It’s a giant place, so to help you discover your method, listed below are a few of Rocky Mountain’s finest hikes.
Bear Lake
Bear Lake is likely one of the park’s most popular destinations for first-time guests, 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 within the area and superb vistas, you must definitely count on massive crowds.
Hikes here range from easy jaunts around Bear Lake (0.5 miles) or to Alberta Falls (1.6 miles) to more challenging excursions that observe the glacial valleys as much as their origins. Mills Lake (5.6 miles) is an effective choice, as is the Loch (6.2 miles), which can be prolonged to the exquisite Lake of Glass and Sky Pond (9.eight miles), each of which are as serene as their names suggest. And while Flattop Mountain (12,324ft, 8.eight miles) is probably not the park’s best 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 favorite and identified for its diverse scenery. On this hike you may climb as much as the treeline and an alpine lake earlier than dropping back down by way of fields of scree and right 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-approach trip that requires no backtracking – and what’s more, it’s principally downhill. You possibly can’t miss Lake Helene, which sits serenely beneath the imposing rough-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 trip by merely going to Lake Helene and back (5.8 miles).
Longs Peak & Chasm Lake
Iconic in each approach, Longs Peak is the top of RMNP and considered one of colorado posters’s traditional climbs. The tallest peak in 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 heart-pounding clambering up polished slabs of rock. Most people start the climb by 3am with a purpose to reach the summit before noon.
The good news is that you don’t have to achieve the summit or flip your legs to jelly. Chasm Lake, positioned at the foot of the Diamond – Longs’ legendary east face where technical climbers rope up to scale the 1000ft wall – is routinely rated as one of the park’s finest hikes. Chasm options all the spectacular scenery of the peak without the risk and arduous ascent. However, at 8.4 miles spherical journey, you’ll nonetheless need to be in very good shape.
Gem Lake
At the northeastern end of the park is Lumpy Ridge, composed of 1.8-billion-year-old granite formations that had been sculpted by the elements reasonably than by glaciers. This markedly completely different type of erosion has resulted in an array of whimsically formed boulders, balancing rocks and colossal domes. The trail to Gem Lake is a good way to explore the area, with superb vistas back to the Continental Divide all the way in which up to the bijou-like lake.