Rocky Mountain National Park's Best Hikes
Lace up your boots and get ready to discover the vast wilderness of Rocky Mountain National Park, where the windswept tundra accommodates an ecosystem of hundreds of species of wildflowers, and hiking posters the sculpted peaks silhouetted towards the blue sky function a dramatic reminder of the final ice age. Traverse this nice backbone of the Continental Divide and listen for bugling elk or spot recent bear scat beneath your feet. Come celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of considered one of America’s oldest nationwide parks in the time-honored tradition – backpack on, walking sticks in hand and sense of wonder restored.
It’s a big place, so that can assist you find your method, listed below are some of Rocky Mountain’s greatest hikes.
Bear Lake
Bear Lake is without doubt one of the park’s hottest destinations for first-time visitors, and with good reason. From here you’ll have a front-row vantage point 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, you need to definitely count on giant crowds.
Hikes here range from easy jaunts round Bear Lake (0.5 miles) or to Alberta Falls (1.6 miles) to more difficult excursions that follow the glacial valleys as much as their origins. Mills Lake (5.6 miles) is a good choice, as is the Loch (6.2 miles), which might 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, 8.8 miles) is probably not the park’s finest 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 identified for its numerous scenery. On this hike you may climb up to the treeline and an alpine lake before dropping back down through 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-manner trip that requires no backtracking – and what’s more, it’s largely downhill. You may’t miss Lake Helene, which sits serenely beneath the imposing tough-minimize 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 every method, Longs Peak is the top of RMNP and one in all Colorado’s basic climbs. The tallest peak in the park (14,259ft), its exhilarating and exhausting Keyhole Route is on many guests’ to-do list. The top of this route is the crux, consisting of slender traverses, vertiginous cliff faces and heart-pounding clambering up polished slabs of rock. Most individuals start the climb by 3am as a way to reach the summit earlier than noon.
The great news is that you don’t have to succeed in the summit or turn your legs to jelly. Chasm Lake, located 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 greatest hikes. Chasm options all the spectacular scenery of the peak with out the risk and arduous ascent. However, at 8.four miles spherical trip, you’ll nonetheless have to be in excellent shape.
Gem Lake
At the northeastern end of the park is Lumpy Ridge, composed of 1.eight-billion-yr-old granite formations that had been sculpted by the elements fairly than by glaciers. This markedly completely different style 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 discover the realm, with superb vistas back to the Continental Divide all the way in which as much as the bijou-like lake.
It’s a big place, so that can assist you find your method, listed below are some of Rocky Mountain’s greatest hikes.
Bear Lake
Bear Lake is without doubt one of the park’s hottest destinations for first-time visitors, and with good reason. From here you’ll have a front-row vantage point 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, you need to definitely count on giant crowds.
Hikes here range from easy jaunts round Bear Lake (0.5 miles) or to Alberta Falls (1.6 miles) to more difficult excursions that follow the glacial valleys as much as their origins. Mills Lake (5.6 miles) is a good choice, as is the Loch (6.2 miles), which might 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, 8.8 miles) is probably not the park’s finest 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 identified for its numerous scenery. On this hike you may climb up to the treeline and an alpine lake before dropping back down through 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-manner trip that requires no backtracking – and what’s more, it’s largely downhill. You may’t miss Lake Helene, which sits serenely beneath the imposing tough-minimize 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 every method, Longs Peak is the top of RMNP and one in all Colorado’s basic climbs. The tallest peak in the park (14,259ft), its exhilarating and exhausting Keyhole Route is on many guests’ to-do list. The top of this route is the crux, consisting of slender traverses, vertiginous cliff faces and heart-pounding clambering up polished slabs of rock. Most individuals start the climb by 3am as a way to reach the summit earlier than noon.
The great news is that you don’t have to succeed in the summit or turn your legs to jelly. Chasm Lake, located 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 greatest hikes. Chasm options all the spectacular scenery of the peak with out the risk and arduous ascent. However, at 8.four miles spherical trip, you’ll nonetheless have to be in excellent shape.
Gem Lake
At the northeastern end of the park is Lumpy Ridge, composed of 1.eight-billion-yr-old granite formations that had been sculpted by the elements fairly than by glaciers. This markedly completely different style 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 discover the realm, with superb vistas back to the Continental Divide all the way in which as much as the bijou-like lake.