Trail Ridge Road

A National Scenic Byway And An All American Road, Opened In 1932. The Highest Continuous Paved Road In The United States, Crossing Rocky Mountain National Park From Estes Park To Grand Lake With Eleven Miles Above Treeline And A High Point Of 12,183 Feet. · Estes Park, Colorado

Trail Ridge Road is forty-eight miles of US 34 across the roof of Rocky Mountain National Park, and for eleven of them it runs above the treeline, on open alpine tundra where nothing grows taller than a cushion plant and the wind never stops. It tops out at 12,183 feet, which makes it the highest continuous paved road in the United States - not a spur to a summit but a through-route, Estes Park on one side and Grand Lake on the other. It was built between 1929 and 1932 to replace the Old Fall River Road, deliberately routed along the ridges so that drivers would see out rather than up, and it partly follows a line the Ute and Arapaho used to cross the divide long before that. The Alpine Visitor Center near the top, at 11,796 feet, is the highest in the National Park System. The road is buried in snow for roughly seven months of the year and the ploughs that open it each spring work through drifts twenty feet deep.

US Highway 34, Estes Park, Colorado, 80517, United States

SEASONAL AND THIS IS THE WHOLE PLANNING PROBLEM. The full road over the top is typically open from around late May to mid-October and is CLOSED BY SNOW FOR ROUGHLY SEVEN MONTHS, with the opening date set by conditions rather than a calendar and the autumn closure often arriving without much warning. Lower sections stay open to the Many Parks Curve and Colorado River trailheads in winter. The road lies inside Rocky Mountain National Park, so the park entrance fee applies AND, in peak season, a TIMED-ENTRY RESERVATION separate from anything else you have booked. The Alpine Visitor Center is seasonal.

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