Rocky Mountain National Park's Best Hikes
Lace up your boots and travel posters get ready to explore the vast wilderness of Rocky Mountain National Park, the place the windswept tundra incorporates an ecosystem of hundreds of species of wildflowers, and the sculpted peaks silhouetted against the blue sky function a dramatic reminder of the final ice age. Traverse this great spine of the Continental Divide and listen for bugling elk or spot recent bear scat beneath your feet. Come celebrate the a hundredth anniversary of certainly one of America’s oldest nationwide parks in the time-honored tradition – backpack on, strolling sticks in hand and sense of wonder restored.
It’s an enormous place, so to help you find your method, listed below are some of Rocky Mountain’s greatest hikes.
Bear Lake
Bear Lake is one of the park’s hottest destinations for first-time visitors, and with good reason. From right here you’ll have a front-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 space and superb vistas, it is best to definitely anticipate massive crowds.
Hikes here range from easy jaunts around 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 an efficient alternative, as is the Loch (6.2 miles), which may be extended 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 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 favourite and identified for its numerous scenery. On this hike you will climb as much as the treeline and an alpine lake before dropping back down through fields of scree and right into a forested valley. Here you’ll pass more lakes, waterfalls, aspen groves and elk-inhabited meadows.
Due to the park shuttle system, this is a one-approach trip that requires no backtracking – and what’s more, it’s mostly 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 simply 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 classic 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 slender traverses, vertiginous cliff faces and coronary heart-pounding clambering up polished slabs of rock. Most individuals start the climb by 3am to be able to reach the summit earlier than noon.
The great news is that you just don’t have to reach the summit or flip your legs to jelly. Chasm Lake, situated at the foot of the Diamond – Longs’ legendary east face the place technical climbers rope as much as scale the 1000ft wall – is routinely rated as one of many park’s greatest hikes. Chasm features all the spectacular scenery of the height without the risk and arduous ascent. Nonetheless, at 8.four miles round journey, you’ll still should be in very good shape.
Gem Lake
At the northeastern finish of the park is Lumpy Ridge, composed of 1.eight-billion-12 months-old granite formations that had been sculpted by the weather reasonably than by glaciers. This markedly totally different type of erosion has resulted in an array of whimsically formed boulders, balancing rocks and colossal domes. The path to Gem Lake is a great way to explore the area, with superb vistas back to the Continental Divide all the way as much as the bijou-like lake.
It’s an enormous place, so to help you find your method, listed below are some of Rocky Mountain’s greatest hikes.
Bear Lake
Bear Lake is one of the park’s hottest destinations for first-time visitors, and with good reason. From right here you’ll have a front-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 space and superb vistas, it is best to definitely anticipate massive crowds.
Hikes here range from easy jaunts around 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 an efficient alternative, as is the Loch (6.2 miles), which may be extended 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 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 favourite and identified for its numerous scenery. On this hike you will climb as much as the treeline and an alpine lake before dropping back down through fields of scree and right into a forested valley. Here you’ll pass more lakes, waterfalls, aspen groves and elk-inhabited meadows.
Due to the park shuttle system, this is a one-approach trip that requires no backtracking – and what’s more, it’s mostly 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 simply 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 classic 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 slender traverses, vertiginous cliff faces and coronary heart-pounding clambering up polished slabs of rock. Most individuals start the climb by 3am to be able to reach the summit earlier than noon.
The great news is that you just don’t have to reach the summit or flip your legs to jelly. Chasm Lake, situated at the foot of the Diamond – Longs’ legendary east face the place technical climbers rope as much as scale the 1000ft wall – is routinely rated as one of many park’s greatest hikes. Chasm features all the spectacular scenery of the height without the risk and arduous ascent. Nonetheless, at 8.four miles round journey, you’ll still should be in very good shape.
Gem Lake
At the northeastern finish of the park is Lumpy Ridge, composed of 1.eight-billion-12 months-old granite formations that had been sculpted by the weather reasonably than by glaciers. This markedly totally different type of erosion has resulted in an array of whimsically formed boulders, balancing rocks and colossal domes. The path to Gem Lake is a great way to explore the area, with superb vistas back to the Continental Divide all the way as much as the bijou-like lake.