Rocky Mountain National Park

Rocky Mountain National Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Rocky Mountain is the park of the Front Range above Estes Park, ninety minutes from Denver, and the tours sold for it are the day trips from Denver and Boulder and the guided outings from Estes Park. The Denver day tours drive up to the park, ride the Trail Ridge Road over the tundra with stops at the viewpoints, walk a short trail at Bear Lake or Sprague Lake, picnic and return, and they are the option for visitors without a car, though they see the park in its busiest hours; the private versions can start earlier and stay later. From Estes Park, the wildlife safari tours in open-sided vehicles go out at dawn and dusk for the elk, the moose in the Kawuneeche valley and the bighorn sheep, and the guided hikes, snowshoe walks in winter and the geology and star tours are led by local naturalists.

The llama hikes and the horseback rides are in the national forests around the park rather than inside it. The park entrance fee is per vehicle for a day or a week, and from late May to mid-October a timed-entry permit, booked online in advance, is required to enter between 9 am and 2 pm for the whole park and from 5 am for the Bear Lake road; the tour companies hold their own permits, which is one reason to book a tour. The park's free shuttle buses serve the Bear Lake corridor in summer. Independent visitors should reserve the timed entry on the day it is released or arrive before five.

Visiting Rocky Mountain National Park: what you will see

The park was established in 1915, the tenth in the United States, and covers 1,075 square kilometres of the Front Range on the continental divide, between Estes Park on the east and Grand Lake on the west, with more than sixty peaks above 3,600 metres, Longs Peak at 4,346 the highest, and a third of the park above the tree line in alpine tundra. Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuous paved road in the country, crosses it from east to west, climbing to 3,713 metres at its summit with the Alpine Visitor Center, the tundra trails and the views over the divide on both sides; the Old Fall River Road is the one-way gravel original. The Bear Lake road on the east side leads to the park's most popular trailheads, the short walks to Bear, Nymph, Dream and Emerald lakes below Hallett Peak and the longer routes to Sky Pond and the Loch, with Alberta Falls on the way;

Sprague Lake has a flat loop with the range mirrored in its water, and Moraine Park and Horseshoe Park are the meadows where the elk bugle in September. The west side, over the pass, is the Kawuneeche valley, the headwaters of the Colorado river, quieter and the best place for moose. Longs Peak is the park's mountain, climbed by the Keyhole route in a long day from before dawn. The wildlife includes elk in thousands, mule deer, bighorn sheep at Sheep Lakes, black bears, pikas and marmots on the tundra and the white-tailed ptarmigan; the 2020 East Troublesome fire burned the west side's forests and the scars are part of the landscape now. The park was among the first UNESCO biosphere reserves in 1976 and receives more than four million visitors a year.

Rocky Mountain National Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

The park is open all year, but Trail Ridge Road is closed by snow from about mid-October to late May, when the east and west sides are separate; the timed-entry system runs from late May to mid-October. July and August are the peak, with the tundra flowers and afternoon thunderstorms that make the high trails a morning affair;

September has the elk rut, the aspens turning and the clearest skies, and is the best month. Winter from December to April brings snowshoeing and skiing on the Bear Lake trails and empty roads on the east side. Start before 8 am in summer whatever the permit says. Allow a full day for Trail Ridge and Bear Lake, and two with the west side. Estes Park and Grand Lake are the gateway towns, and Denver is the airport.