Rocky Mountain National Park
National Park, Established 1915. 415 Square Miles Of The Front Range Spanning The Continental Divide, With More Than Sixty Peaks Above 12,000 Feet And A Third Of The Park Above Treeline. · Estes Park, Colorado
Rocky Mountain National Park is the Front Range at its most concentrated: four hundred and fifteen square miles straddling the Continental Divide, more than sixty peaks above twelve thousand feet, and a third of the park above treeline where nothing taller than a cushion plant grows. Trail Ridge Road crosses it at over twelve thousand feet, the highest continuous paved road in the United States, and is buried in snow from late October until Memorial Day. Longs Peak, the park's only fourteener, kills people most years. Elk graze the meadows at Moraine Park in herds and bugle through September, moose work the willows on the quieter western side, and four and a half million people a year come to see it - which is why the park now runs a timed-entry reservation system in summer that catches out almost every first-time visitor. The park is also one of the very few that bans dogs from every trail in it, which is the other thing people learn at the gate rather than before they set off.
1000 US Highway 36, Estes Park, Colorado, 80517, United States
The park is open twenty-four hours a year-round, but that is not the useful answer. TIMED-ENTRY RESERVATIONS are required to drive in during the busy months, typically late May to mid-October, and are released in advance and again the evening before - they sell out. Trail Ridge Road closes with the first serious snow, usually in October, and reopens around Memorial Day; Old Fall River Road is one-way, gravel and seasonal. Visitor centres keep daytime hours and the Alpine Visitor Center is summer only. Confirm the current reservation rules before travelling.
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