Rocky Mountain National Park's Best Hikes
Lace up your boots and get ready to discover 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 serve as a dramatic reminder of the last ice age. Traverse this nice spine of the Continental Divide and listen for bugling elk or spot contemporary bear scat beneath your feet. Come celebrate the a hundredth anniversary of one in every of America’s oldest nationwide parks in the time-honored tradition – backpack on, walking sticks in hand and sense of marvel restored.
It’s an enormous place, travel posters so to help you discover your means, listed below are some of Rocky Mountain’s finest hikes.
Bear Lake
Bear Lake is without doubt one of the park’s hottest destinations for first-time guests, and with good reason. From here you’ll have a entrance-row vantage point 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 should definitely expect large crowds.
Hikes here range from simple jaunts round Bear Lake (0.5 miles) or to Alberta Falls (1.6 miles) to more difficult excursions that observe 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), each of which are as serene as their names suggest. And while Flattop Mountain (12,324ft, 8.eight miles) will not be 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 favorite and known for its various scenery. On this hike you will climb up to the treeline and an alpine lake earlier than dropping back down via fields of scree and into a forested valley. Right here you’ll pass more lakes, waterfalls, aspen groves and elk-inhabited meadows.
Because of the park shuttle system, this is a one-approach journey 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-reduce 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 means, Longs Peak is the top of RMNP and one in every of Colorado’s traditional climbs. The tallest peak within the park (14,259ft), its exhilarating and exhausting Keyhole Route is on many visitors’ to-do list. The highest of this route is the crux, consisting of slender traverses, vertiginous cliff faces and coronary heart-pounding clambering up polished slabs of rock. Most people begin the climb by 3am in order to attain the summit before noon.
The good news is that you don’t have to succeed in the summit or turn your legs to jelly. Chasm Lake, positioned on 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 many park’s best hikes. Chasm features all the spectacular surroundings of the peak with out the risk and arduous ascent. Nevertheless, at 8.four miles spherical journey, you’ll nonetheless need to be in superb shape.
Gem Lake
On the northeastern end of the park is Lumpy Ridge, composed of 1.8-billion-12 months-old granite formations that have been sculpted by the weather rather than by glaciers. This markedly totally different fashion of abrasion has resulted in an array of whimsically shaped boulders, balancing rocks and colossal domes. The path to Gem Lake is a great way to discover the realm, with superb vistas back to the Continental Divide all the way up to the bijou-like lake.
It’s an enormous place, travel posters so to help you discover your means, listed below are some of Rocky Mountain’s finest hikes.
Bear Lake
Bear Lake is without doubt one of the park’s hottest destinations for first-time guests, and with good reason. From here you’ll have a entrance-row vantage point 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 should definitely expect large crowds.
Hikes here range from simple jaunts round Bear Lake (0.5 miles) or to Alberta Falls (1.6 miles) to more difficult excursions that observe 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), each of which are as serene as their names suggest. And while Flattop Mountain (12,324ft, 8.eight miles) will not be 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 favorite and known for its various scenery. On this hike you will climb up to the treeline and an alpine lake earlier than dropping back down via fields of scree and into a forested valley. Right here you’ll pass more lakes, waterfalls, aspen groves and elk-inhabited meadows.
Because of the park shuttle system, this is a one-approach journey 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-reduce 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 means, Longs Peak is the top of RMNP and one in every of Colorado’s traditional climbs. The tallest peak within the park (14,259ft), its exhilarating and exhausting Keyhole Route is on many visitors’ to-do list. The highest of this route is the crux, consisting of slender traverses, vertiginous cliff faces and coronary heart-pounding clambering up polished slabs of rock. Most people begin the climb by 3am in order to attain the summit before noon.
The good news is that you don’t have to succeed in the summit or turn your legs to jelly. Chasm Lake, positioned on 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 many park’s best hikes. Chasm features all the spectacular surroundings of the peak with out the risk and arduous ascent. Nevertheless, at 8.four miles spherical journey, you’ll nonetheless need to be in superb shape.
Gem Lake
On the northeastern end of the park is Lumpy Ridge, composed of 1.8-billion-12 months-old granite formations that have been sculpted by the weather rather than by glaciers. This markedly totally different fashion of abrasion has resulted in an array of whimsically shaped boulders, balancing rocks and colossal domes. The path to Gem Lake is a great way to discover the realm, with superb vistas back to the Continental Divide all the way up to the bijou-like lake.